


A Prank on Both Your Offices

by alchemicink, nachtegael (miyeokguk)



Category: EXO (Band), Hey! Say! JUMP
Genre: #peoplenamedYuya, Alternate Universe - Office, Crack, Humor, M/M, Office Supplies, Prank War, Romeo and Juliet References, Takakseok crack ship, a few random kpop and jpop cameos, inappropriate use of waffles and maple syrup and chickens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 06:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4294845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemicink/pseuds/alchemicink, https://archiveofourown.org/users/miyeokguk/pseuds/nachtegael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a tragic, crackish tale of star crossed office pranks, will secret lovers Minseok and Takaki ever overcome their coworkers thirst for vengeance and maple syrup?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No chickens were harmed in the making of this fic!

“Yixing, friend, good man, will you please come out and talk to me?” Joonmyun, CEO and head director of EXOdhesives, Inc., knelt on the cheap, purple carpeting next to the supply closet door, his nose pressed into the crack by the door knob. “Hyung is worried about you!”

“Go away! I’m busy.” The muffled growl that wafted through the crack was the same answer Yixing had been giving whenever anyone had tried to disturb him--for the past 18 hours.

Minseok rolled his eyes at their boss’ mothering attempts to coax the resident adhesive engineer out of his cave. All this would result in would be wrinkling up the knees of Joonmyun’s overpriced suit. When Yixing was in the zone, there was no getting him out of it. Not even shoving fresh take-out lo mein up to the crack under the door seemed to work, so Joonmyun was wasting his time.

Minseok sighed, chewing on the end of his pencil and circling a typo he had missed on the last section of the page spread before him. He needed to finish proofreading this contract by 4 PM, when he was supposed to meet his client for signing, but it was getting really hard to focus on the stilted legalese when his coworkers were running frantically around the office.

Cue Jongdae tripping over his shoelaces as he rounds the corner, nearly banging his forehead on the edge of Minseok's desk as he caught himself with clawing grip on Minseok's shoulder.

"Sorry!" he panted, sliding a heavy stack of paperwork onto the desk just shy of knocking over Minseok's latte. "These...are for you...to sign, initial, stamp--something magical and approving, I don't know, but Kris said..."

"Um, are you okay?" Minseok glanced between the ream of extra paperwork now waiting on his desk, the barrier between him and his lunch break, and Jongdae who was nearly sobbing for breath and still clutching his arm as he regained his balance.

"Yeah, I just--ran up the stairs to--de--deliver these because the elevator was held up again." Jongdae released Minseok's sleeve with a low whine and swiped at his forehead, streaking his starched cuff with a dark sheen of sweat.

"Take it easy, okay?" Minseok patted the legal assistant lightly on the arm, since he couldn't reach his actual shoulder while still seated at his desk. "It's not like this work is going anywhere without us if you walk at a normal pace."

"Yes sir, I guess not." Jongdae nodded his head in time to his ragged breaths//breathing. "I'll walk next time. Did you still need a fresh ink pad to stamp those?" He pointed to the ink smudged tin on Minseok's desk next his stapler.

Minseok groaned, his head hitting the back of his chair without regard to mussing the subtle spikes he had waxed into his hair that morning while waiting for his first pot of coffee to brew. The fabric ink pad inside the tin was dry enough to clean his makeup brushes on. He had been delaying requesting a fresh one from the supply closet for weeks now, and with good reason.

"Yeah...Jongdae-yah," Minseok started, stretching his lips into his sweetest smile, "you don't think you could go grab one for me? Since you're standing and I'm sitting and, yeah? What do you say?" Minseok propped his chin in the cup of his palms, which he knew made his face look even rounder and more irresistible, and batted his eyelashes just a bit. Jongdae's audible gulp made Minseok grin wider.

"Yes sir, I mean I totally would sir, but--" Jongdae twisted his shoulders to peer in the direction of the receptionist's desk and the supply closet that lay through the double doors just behind the counter. "Um but--maybe we should wait til after lunch. I don't think Head Secretary is in a very... _kind_ mood right now. If you know what I mean." Jongdae's speech of excuses trailed off into a nervous, high pitched giggle.

Minseok just patted his arm again, this time tightening his fingers around Jongdae's wrist. "Or, we could go together!"

"Ok," Jongdae sighed, his voice as weak as Minseok's pulse as the lawyer hauled himself to his feet using Jongdae's slim frame as leverage.

Minseok cleared his throat in preparation as they passed the water cooler, his unofficial borderline for where Kyungsoo's Head Secretary jurisdiction began and Joonmyun’s general office management lordship ended. Technically the admin team was under the managers' leadership and supervisionary discretion, but Kyungsoo was the de facto Lord of the Supply Closet nonetheless.

They could hear voices raised in altercation as they approached, and Minseok held Jongdae back from the threshold of the hall with a tighter grip on his wrist. "Shh," he held his other fingers to his lips, and Jongdae nodded, his face going pale as he slipped behind Minseok into the shadows of the water cooler.

"Dude, seriously! All I need is one little itty-bitty stretchy-wetchy rubber band!" Chanyeol wheedled as Kyungsoo shoved the IT dude out of the closet with a swiffer pad braced against his right shoulder.

"You just type things on machines all day, like an illiterate monkey who can't even bang out a Shakespearean sonnet if he tried," Kyungsoo spat, shoving harder with the swiffer pole in his hands until Chanyeol stumbled up against the inside ledge of the counter. "Give me one good reason why you need physical office supplies!"

"Because!" Chanyeol actually whined, crossing his arms under the pole of the swiffer. "Soo-yah, really! I need the rubber bands to hold cables into coils so they don't get all tangled under Joonmyun hyung’s desk. He's been getting complaints from the janitor about the maze down there and how hard it is to vacuum and stuff!"

"And stuff?" Kyungsoo leaned forward to glare, somehow looking three times as menacing as the person he was intimidating even though he was a full head shorter than Chanyeol. "Not very convincing! Especially when I already allocated you seven rubber bands last week for your unauthorized cable organizing!"

"But I forgot I needed eight!"

"Not my problem," Kyungsoo snapped, and dropped the handle of the mop to the tile. "Next time, fill out the paperwork properly, and we can avoid this sort of _unpleasantness_ in the future.”

"Fine," Chanyeol sighed, bending to pick up the handle of the swiffer while Baekhyun, the co-secretary, snickered loudly behind his palm and spun lazy circles in his desk chair. "I'll fill out another form if it'll make you happy, Soo. You know I love you, right?"

Minseok rolled his eyes at the sudden shift in Chanyeol's vocal tone. His mannerisms swung from kicked puppy to cocky charmer trying to pick up a dude at a bar with a virgin pina colada in either hand. "Hey, Kyungsoo--" he started, but Kyungsoo gave a loud _hmmph_ as he retreated into the closet before slamming the doors behind him.

"Go away unless you have official business," his voice came muffled through the heavy wooden paneling, "and don't come back unless a manager sent you!"

"I just needed a new ink pad," Minseok sighed, stepping into sight of the counter as Chanyeol slumped against Kyungsoo's empty desk chair in defeat. "To stamp official outgoing paperwork! What's got him all riled up?"

Baekhyun shrugged, still spinning in his chair. His grin stayed plastered on his face as he revolved, like a merry-go-round steed with lips bared at full-charge-ahead speed. "Who even knows. But I don't think he's coming out of there until Jonginnie brings the afternoon coffee orders."

"Dang," Jongdae sighed, slipping his arm out of Minseok's grasp, "I guess there's nothing we can do at this point, huh? I guess I'll go back to processing order forms for polymer glue formula now, hehehe! Back-to-school season is coming up, and all!" He slipped around the corner, jogging as he neared the end of the hall, and Minseok envied his easy escape. No one had to (had the chance to, more like) confront the terrifying head secretary and steward of office supplies for the time being, but Minseok was still out of the red ink he needed to seal the forms with, which probably needed to be faxed out before noon.

"Could I at least borrow your ink pad? Just for an hour? _Please?"_ He pressed both his hands together in an attitude of prayer and gave Baekhyun his best angelic face, making sure to wibble his lips.

Baekhyun rolled his eyes with a loud sigh, shoving his desk phone back to open a side drawer. "I suppose, but only since it's for official business," he said, shoving a black box at Minseok with a pointed glare. "And you better bring that back as soon as you're done! It's not even supposed to leave this counter technically," he continued in a hushed whisper, glancing over his shoulder at the closet door.

"Thanks! You the best, bb!" Minseok blew a kiss off his palm with a wink and Baekhyun pretended to gag, fitting a hand to the collar of his paisley shirt. "I gotta run!"

"No running in the office!" Kyungsoo's voice carried sharply through the doors. "And Park! No sitting in my chair! You'll wear out the cushions."

Chanyeol nearly jumped out of Kyungsoo's seat, howling in pain when he banged his shin on the open drawer of the copy machine crammed behind the counter between the two desk chairs. "Sorry, Soo! Catch you later, ok?" he said, and squeezed Baekhyun's shoulders on his way out to the hall.

Baekhyun shook him off with a glare, reaching to answer the phone that had begun to ring as Minseok waved adios to them both.

Chanyeol wasn't the only one giving out free shoulder massages, it turned out. As soon as Minseok made it back to the maze of cubicles in the main office area he was greeted with the sight of Kris, the assistant manager, digging his thumbs into the back of Joonmyun’s neck. Joonmyun was slumped over a rolling chair in the middle of the hall in front of the break room, groaning and rolling his neck with a grimace of pained appreciation as Kris kneaded his tense muscles.

"Something wrong, boss?" Minseok asked in concern as he drew closer. It wasn't unusual to see the head manager stressed to the point of tears in the busy window between back-to-school season and the International Association of Adhesive Designer's annual conference, but something must have happened for Joonmyun to be sitting down in the middle of the day instead of trapped in his office on another long distance conference call or pacing the halls and reciting figures and marketing slogans to himself, his usual form of stress relief when he couldn't keep still from all of the anxiety and coffee he'd consumed.

"Nah, not really," Kris sighed, spinning the chair 30 degrees in order to get at Joonmyun's neck from another angle. "Tao was dusting the nameplates again because he thought he missed a spot polishing them last weekend, and then locked the keys in Joonmyun’s office. He and Sehun had to run down to HR to get a spare set."

"Doesn't Kyungsoo have the master key?" Minseok asked, and then snapped his mouth shut with a sigh of understanding as Kris raised his eyebrows and jerked his head in the direction Minseok had just come from. "Good point," Minseok said, and tightened his grip on the tin of ink. "I think I'll just...take my paperwork to the break room and try to stay out of everyone's hair."

Kris nodded sympathetically. "Let me know if you want breakfast for lunch, I think Jongin was going to pick up waffles and stuff."

"Kay, thanks boss," Minseok smiled gratefully to Kris. "And enjoy your massage, other boss!" He patted Joonmyun tentatively on the shoulder before whisking the tree trunk of paperwork off his desk and into the break room. Finally, time for a bit of peace and quiet!

Minseok sighed, sinking into the nearest chair in the break room with his back to the corridor for optimum ignoring of annoying officemates. His back went rigid against the chair when the alert for an incoming message crossed his phone screen, but his face relaxed in a smile when he saw who it was from. He could always count on his boyfriend to distract him from the idiots he had to work with.

_\--whats up? ^_^/_

_\--*sigh* cant share the details atm but working on a new product_ , Minseok quickly typed back, pausing to blow the steam off his coffee.

_\--ooh, exciting~_

Minseok snorted. If only the rest of the EXO product development team were this enthusiastic about their own project, they might actually stay on schedule for once.

_\--more like stressful?  
\--idk, it’ll be fine, once Joonmyun hyung placates xing enough to come out of the supply closet  >.>_

_\--that...does sound stressful. lemme know if you need cupcakes or waffles or sthg to lure him out !_

Minseok smiled again, a mist of fond affection warming his face even more than the steam from his espresso at Takaki’s thoughtfulness. Although Yixing probably wanted nothing to do with waffles and other breakfast foods at the moment.

_\--thanks, bb <33 will do_

_\--luv u…...chu!_

 

 

★   ★   ★

 

 

“I’m hungry,” a voice whined from somewhere nearby. Takaki Yuya had just put his phone away to get back to his game of solitaire, so he looked up from his computer to see his coworker, Nakajima Yuto, with his head down on his desk. It was a good thing their boss wasn’t around at the moment to see Yuto lying down on the job. He’d surely get a lecture for it.

“It’s 9am. Didn’t you eat breakfast?” Takaki asked. He was supposed to be putting together some spreadsheet about JUMPaper’s sales projections for index cards or something but he’d taken a break an hour ago to play solitaire on his computer. He was determined to win a game because his losing streak was currently at 107 games in a row.

“Mmm… breakfast,” Yuto hummed, not answering the question at all. “I want waffles.”

“There are some bagels in the break room,” Yamada Ryosuke, the guy in the next desk over, suggested. He was in the middle of making a paper clip necklace and looked a bit concerned that he was rapidly running out of materials.

“I don’t want bagels,” Yuto complained. “I want waffles. Inoo, get me some waffles.” He called across the room to their accountant, Inoo Kei, but he was engrossed in some calculations on his computer and just waved his hand absentmindedly at them before running the hand through his hair in frustration, making it stick out at odd angles.

“Why don’t you just call Daiki?” Takaki asked. He tapped a pencil on his desk and then tossed it at Yamada when he didn’t think he was looking. Yamada managed to dodge the flying object in time somehow though. “He can maybe pick up some for you.”

Yuto perked up at the suggestion. He grabbed his phone and quickly dialed the number for their delivery guy, Arioka Daiki. The phone was on speaker so they listened as it rang and rang and rang until finally it cut to Daiki’s voicemail. _Hello, this is the phone of Arioka Daiki. I can’t answer the phone right now because I’m lost on the highway of life, but leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I find myself. Unless, of course, this is Yabu in which case, you dialed the wrong number again. I am not the pizza place. Please stop calling. Thanks and have a nice da—BEEEEEEP._

After the beep that had cut off Daiki’s pre-recorded message, Yuto shouted his own message about waffles into the phone in one breath and then hung up.

“Do you think he’ll bring me waffles?” Yuto asked.

“Doubtful,” Takaki answered. Knowing Daiki, he probably wouldn’t check his messages until next week.

“Did I just hear a beeping noise? Is that my computer?” a voice asked from a different nearby desk. They all turned to see Yabu Kota tangled up in trying to connect his phone and his wireless headset, looking confused about everything.

“Your computer isn’t even on,” Yamada pointed out.

“I knew that,” Yabu answered and tried to look casually nonchalant about the situation. He tossed the tangled phone cord and headset over his shoulder like a scarf as if that was where it was meant to be. How he landed the job of tech support, none of them would ever know.

Yamada paused in his paperclip necklace making since he had finally run out of paperclips. “What about Chinen?” he asked. “I bet he could get us some waffles easily. Shoot, I bet he’s probably got his own secret stash somewhere.”

“He can’t,” Yuto frowned. “He’s doing inventory today.”

“Oooohhhh,” Yamada nodded in understanding. They all knew that “doing inventory” meant, for Chinen, that he was taking a nap in the storage room. “Best not go back there.”

“It’s like poking a sleeping dragon,” Takaki added. He remembered one time he’d accidentally woken Chinen up and then he had to dodge a whole ream of paper that came flying at his face. Not fun. Not fun at all.

“Guess you’ll just have to go get them yourself,” Yamada said just as their boss, Yaotome Hikaru, stepped back into the office. He was engrossed in some paperwork and didn’t even look up as he walked to his desk.

“I’ll need a distraction as I escape,” Yuto whispered. He looked around the room. “Keito, you can do it.”

Okamoto Keito, who had actually been focused on doing work, gave them all a side-eye from his desk beside Yamada’s. “Why do I have to do it?”

“Because you’re the new guy,” Yuto answered. He checked to make sure his shoes were secure on his feet and then he started doing a few stretches in his seat so that he could sprint away at a moment’s notice. Dress shoes weren’t ideal for running, but Yuto had experience for quickly escaping from the office at a moment’s notice if necessary.

Keito looked annoyed. “Why do you all keep insisting on calling me the new guy? I’ve worked here for seven years!”

“Yes, but the rest of us have worked here for seven years and _one month_ ,” Takaki explained.

“That’s just the way to cookie crumbles,” Yamada said. (“ _Mmm… cookies_ ” Yuto added from nearby, which everyone ignored) “You’re the distraction. Deal with it.” And with that declaration, Yamada knocked the cup of pens and pencils off Keito’s desk to the floor, scattering them in every direction. “Oh Keito, you’re so clumsy!” he shouted in case Hikaru was listening.

“I hate you all,” Keito muttered as he leaned down to grab his stuff. Yamada took the opportunity to steal all the paperclips from Keito’s desk and Yuto dashed away from his seat, quick as lightning. He bumped into the trashcan by Inoo’s desk, knocking it over, but Inoo didn’t even notice. Without looking away from his computer, he just crumpled up another sheet of paper and tossed it towards where the trash can was supposed to be. Hikaru didn’t notice anything since he still had his nose buried in his paperwork.

Once Keito had managed to get all his stuff back together, Hikaru got up from his desk and took his position in front of where everyone else’s desks were grouped together. “Office meeting,” he called out in a booming voice as if they weren’t all sitting right there. “Where’s Chinen?”

“Inventory,” Takaki answered. He paused playing his game of solitaire again since he was still losing.

Hikaru nodded. “Where’s Yuto?”

“Maybe in the bathroom?” Yamada lied easily. “Probably something he ate earlier.”

Hikaru grimaced. “Well, we’ll start without him.” He shuffled the papers he was holding. “So we’re going to be—Inoo, are you listening?”

Inoo was still focused on his computer, typing furiously away at the keys. He just absentmindedly waved his hand at them again. It looked like he hadn’t blinked in an hour. Yabu grabbed his chair and rolled him away from the desk.

“Noooo,” Inoo exclaimed, hands outstretched, fingers still moving like they were tapping an invisible keyboard. “I’m so close to figuring out the problem.”

Hikaru ignored Inoo’s protests and continued with his announcement. “So we’re going to be promoting a new product soon. Sticky notes!” He passed out information about the new item to everyone in the room. There was a vague sense of bored disinterest as they all looked over the specifications and other details. They all knew that a new product meant more work since they had to put together extra advertisements and promotions and restock the inventory again. Takaki sighed. That meant less time to spend on improving his solitaire skills. But on the the bright side, perhaps he’d have a chance to meet with Minseok more for contract signings and such.

“So get to work, guys,” Hikaru continued, clapping his hands together. “We don’t need to fall behind the competition.”

At that moment when they were all returning to their desks, Yuto burst back into the room with a large crate in his hands. He bumped into Inoo’s trashcan again as he made his way back to his desk. Before he could even open the box though, Hikaru was standing over him with his arms crossed, looking suspicious.

“What’s in the box?”

“Uh… waffles?” Yuto answered with a sheepish grin he usually only reserved for Inoo when he was trying to explain unnecessary purchases on the company credit card.

“Did you find those in the bathroom?” Hikaru asked.

“The bathroom?” Yuto scratched his head, and Yamada frantically signaled to him to play along. “Nooo,” Yuto answered with a scoff. “Who finds waffles in the bathroom? That’s gross. They were sitting _outside_ the bathroom.”

Hikaru dumped a stack of paperwork onto Yuto’s desk, not fooled for even a minute. “You can file all these reports by lunch time then,” Hikaru said and then cackled evilly as he walked away, taking a waffle with him as he left.

As everyone went back to work or just back to looking busy, Takaki returned to his solitaire game. But then he realized that his losing streak was up to 135 games. Disappointed, he decided to pull out his cell phone instead and see if he had any new text messages from Minseok. There weren’t any but he opened the earlier conversation with his boyfriend to reread. And that’s when he remembered that Minseok mentioned something about a new product for their company too. _Hmm_ , Takaki thought to himself. He wondered what their firm would be promoting this spring.

Deciding not to worry about it, Takaki typed up a sappy stream of hearts to obnoxiously spam Minseok with and then went back to avoiding the spreadsheet he was supposed to be doing.

 

 

★   ★   ★

 

 

"Hey!" Takaki stood up from his seat with a wave when Minseok pushed through the doors from the hotel lobby. The spotlights lining the strip of ceiling above the bar cast a cozy glow over the counter, softening the sleek lines of black marble and leather backed chairs.

"Long time no see!" Minseok nudged his shoulder with a playful bump as he slid into the chair beside Takaki. "You have dinner already?"

"Yup! Here, take my drink. I've already had a whiskey while I was waiting on you." Takaki signalled the bartender for another highball with a wink that would make Minseok's stomach flip with jealousy if he weren't certain of his boyfriend's loyalty. Takaki was almost disgusting in his sappy displays of affection on a regular basis, hanging on Minseok's arm while they stood in line for popcorn at the movie theater or petting his hair at the grocery checkout with both his hands at once.

If it didn't make Minseok so happy, warm tendrils of affection tugging his lips into an indulgent smile every time, he'd be embarrassed. But life with Takaki was one giant exercise in losing inhibitions and learning to forget embarrassment. In other words, Minseok was more or less used to his PDA and shenanigans, and once in awhile he even initiated them himself.

"Ah, did you wait long? I got stuck in traffic but I didn't realize I was _that_ late or I would have called you."

Takaki smoothed the pout from Minseok's lips with the tip of his thumb and a slight shake of his head that wouldn't disturb his carefully coiffed hair. (As much as he liked to muss up the spiked strands of Minseok's short hair, Minseok wasn't allowed to reciprocate until the end of the day when Takaki was sure no one would be seeing him for the rest of the evening. To quote his excuse, "I spend enough on hairspray already without having to redo it every time you feel like petting me! Go buy a dog, already, jeez.")

"Nah, you're not that late. I just got here early because we finished our meeting on time for once."

"Ah, was it a rough negotiation?" Minseok eyed the tousled fringe wilting across Takaki's brow and the knot of his tie already loosened a few centimeters below his collarbones.

"I can't tell you details," Takaki shrugged, and Minseok nodded in understanding. "But yeah, it sucked. Meetings always suck with the idiots I have to work with."

"Idiots?" Minseok clinked his glass into Takaki's refill when the bartender handed it over, and Takaki's answering laugh was as bright as the clink of the ice in his drink. "Just yesterday you were texting me about waffles and how wonderful they all are!"

"Ah, well, wonderful idiots, but they're still so dumb, Minseokkie. If--! Well, just trust me: _they are dumb."_

"I can commiserate," Minseok sighed as he sipped from his glass. If only Lu Han didn't have to make his life so difficult. Just getting to the coffee creamer shouldn't be so difficult, not to mention the hoops Kyungsoo had made him jump through that morning just to use an ink pad to stamp those outgoing forms. "Ah well, let's not think about them. Did you bring the files?"

"Yup!" Takaki pulled a turquoise plastic sleeve from his briefcase. "Here's the contract."

Minseok shook his head at the puffy foam stickers in the shape of cherries and strawberries decorating the folder. He wouldn't have been too surprised if even the contract itself had been printed in purple ink or edged in a border of glitter, but to his relief the papers looked to be in order.

"Good! Here are the clauses I prepared today." He handed over the documents and exchanged them for the set in Takaki's hands. "Well, now that business is all taken care of for tonight...tell me about your day? All of the non-idiotic parts, unless of course you want to include those too."

"Ok! I'll go first, but then I want to hear about yours, too."

Takaki's fingers found Minseok's under the counter and Minseok laced them together against his knee. It had been a long day to be sure, but there was no better antidote for a stressful workday than a drink with his boyfriend. He only wished they had time to meet up like this every night of the week.

 

 

☎   ☎   ☎

 

 

"Hey, this is Lee Taeil from the Jackpot Fusion Kitchen. Our restaurant ordered some personalized sticky note pads from y'all a week ago, but the boss wants to change the colors and we couldn't figure out how to resubmit the order form."

"Sorry dude. I dunno how to resubmit google forms either." Baekhyun cleared his throat, seconds away from cutting the call, but he hesitated to ask, "Oh hey, you're that pizza kitchen place on the main road, right? I'd like to order a medium Bulgogi Sunrise pizza with extra sweet potato in the crust. Oh, and can you add a liter of coke to that?"

"What the mozzarella," the caller growled, "I'm trying to talk business here."

"So am I," Baekhyun hummed in reply. "And your business is pizza, is it not?"

"I hate rice pizza. I wanted to open a chicken place, but Jiho insisted fusion pizza was more edgy. Can we just discuss the sticky note order, please."

"This Jiho sounds like a dude after my own heart! Do you sell personalized pizzas? Could I by chance make that order half bulgogi, half samgyeopsal?"

"I'm sick of eating barbecue, and I'm sick of you. I'm calling your HR department to demand an explanation!"

The line cut just as Kyungsoo poked his out from the storage closet, sniffing suspiciously as he eyed Baekhyun. "Did you just order more food? Baekhyun, you had half a blueberry and gorgonzola pizza for breakfast! Please don't get more grease stains on the paperwork!"

"Nah, I think the order didn't go through. Don't sweat it, Soo."

"And don't call me that!" Kyungsoo disappeared into the back room again with an irritated wriggle of his shoulders. Baekhyun just laughed, voice echoing like the ominous ring of warning bells as Kyungsoo's cell started to ring, because he had listed his co-secretary's personal number under the HR contact info on the company website.

Baekhyun decided right then and there that he should talk to Tao about getting a new name plate for his desk: _Byun Baekhyun, Certified Genius._

 

 

★   ★   ★

 

 

"Time for the weekly nameplate polishing, if you could just vacate your desk for a brief moment." Tao whipped out a strip of cloth like a magician pulling a silk scarf from his shirt sleeve, though the fabric he presented on his palm was thick flannel instead of watered silk. "Please."

"Fine," Minseok sighed, getting to his feet when Tao fluttered the dusting cloth at him. "Don't break anything. I'm going for a coffee break."

"Ok, have fun in there!" Tao shook the rag at him like a wife sending her husband off to war with an excess of hankie waving as Minseok slunk off to the break room.

He only had to push the door open to understand what Tao had meant with his comment about 'fun'. The narrow room was crowded with his coworkers, also shooed away from their desks by Tao's polishing spray, no doubt.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol occupied the only chairs, while Joonmyun and Yixing leaned up against the far wall under the high window. Sehun was texting on top of Jongin’s prostrate form sprawled on the break room table like a heap of puppies. Minseok didn't mind the lack of seats, though. He just wanted a cup of coffee from the machine next to the fridge.

Unfortunately, Lu Han was standing in his way.

"Not again," Minseok sighed to himself. None of the interns looked up to greet him as he stepped inside, though Joonmyun did wave to him from across the room.

"Minseok!" Lu Han raised his mug in greeting. Of course he would be first to notice Minseok's entrance and immediately ensnare him in an inconvenient sort of conversation.

"Happy Tuesday! May I inquire if you were the one who ordered this roast?" Lu Han pointed to the sack of whole roasted beans pulled from the freezer.

"I ordered them through the brewer's coop I belong to. They're Colombian."

"So it says on the package." Luhan nodded, blinking in counterpoint. His smile reminded Minseok of those creepy photos hanging on the walls of the dentist's office he had visited as a child. "But have you bothered to check the background of the distributor thoroughly? Are these fair trade?"

"The coop directors check on that, actually. So I don't need to worry about checking them personally."

"But it never hurts to double check instead of being led blindly." Lu Han shook the black leather band bracelets encircling his slender wrist up his forearm, still smiling. Minseok tried to smile back as he placed his mug on the counter and filled it from the steaming coffee pot.

"Fair trade? Are you guys talking about suppliers?" Joonmyun sidled over, eye twitching in interest, before Minseok could even replace the glass pot on the warmer. "Lu Han, that is an excellent idea! You're using organic soy ink on all of our promotional fliers now, right? We should try to emphasize our company's devotion to sustainable practices and fair trade in our presentation at the association conference!"

"I doubt the conference attendees care that much about the ink on our posters." Yixing stalked over, moccasins squeaking on the kitchen tile. He parked himself next to Joonmyun, but a step outside of the circle forming around the coffee maker. "We should focus our attentions on the adhesive technology breakthroughs we plan to showcase, not the packaging."

"I take offense at that comment!" Lu Han gave an affronted sniff as he adjusted the frames of his lens-less glasses on his nose. "Packaging is incredibly important! Right, boss?"

Minseok rolled his eyes at the Lu Han's huffing. He wouldn't be surprised if angry smoke started to curl from the designer's nostrils, but he really didn't care. All Minseok wanted was to slip through the tangle of dissidents to grab the non-dairy creamer from the fridge.

"Now, of course packaging is important!" Joonmyun gave a loose fingered pat to Lu Han's shoulder with a nervous laugh, but all that resulted in was ruffling Yixing's coveralls the more.

"If no one in here understands the humanity of my life's work, the art of developing of eco-friendly adhesives for a brighter future, I'll take my leave." Yixing turned to stomp back to his laboratory but Joonmyun caught him by the shirt sleeve.

"Yixing, dear sir! I think this is all a big misunderstanding! I think _both_ are important, and of course everyone in this room values your important research! Isn't that right, Lu Han?"

Lu Han rolled his eyes to the ceiling but gave in with a grudging nod when Joonmyun fixed him with an imploring pout. "Yes, I suppose the product is important, too."

"The real challenge here is to design a product with both aspects," Joonmyun continued, blissfully unaware that his feuding employees seemed more interested into glaring insults at one another than listening to his pep talk. "It needs to be structurally sound and sustainable in its design, while also appealing to a wide market of consumers!"

"Which is why I keep insisting that we need to start looking into alternative adhesive sources that are more--!"

"Sorry, Xing! Hold that thought!" Joonmyun interrupted the engineer with a hefty thump on the back when his cell phone began to ring.

"Appealing?" Baekhyun took the lull in conversation as an opportunity to jump in with his unsolicited two cents, and Minseok could feel tendrils of dread twining around the spokes of his ribcage like a mutant cucumber vine. "Hyung! I think you should correct your working assumption that anyone actually _likes_ adhesives! Think about it--when was the last time something annoyed you? Very likely it was adhesive from a price tag that wouldn't wash off the back of your--"

"Pearls before swine, do not cast your--!" Without Joonmyun to hold him back from his tormented rage, Yixing fled the break room with an anguished cry, no doubt to barricade himself in his lab with his freshly polished nameplate.

Minseok sighed, partly because he sympathized with Yixing, he really did, but mostly because Lu Han was still blocking his path to the fridge and the coffee creamer waiting inside. He would go after the engineer to sweet talk him out from his cave if he thought it would help matters, but in general Yixing did his most brilliant work when Baekhyun got him good and riled up, so Minseok decided to wait a few hours delivering him a box of fresh lo mein to revive his spirits.

But first things first, Minseok needed his coffee creamer. He stepped on the toes of Lu Han's suede oxfords, coughing out a hiccup of surprise when he stumbled back from the fridge with a yelp of pain.

"Oops! Sorry, I didn't see your toes there. Nice shoes, by the way! Is that sustainable vegan leather you have on there?"

Lu Han's growl of frustration as Minseok waltzed back to his desk tasted even sweeter than the generous dash of Irish cream diffusing into his Colombian coffee. Minseok felt refreshed and prepared to stamp his way through a Mt. Everest of Jongdae's paperwork.

 

 

☎   ☎   ☎

 

 

“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

_Click._

Yabu blinked as he realized the person on the other end of the line had hung up. He took his headset back off and turned to Yamada who was walking by with some paperwork in hand. “Apparently someone hasn’t seen _The Princess Bride.”_

“Inconceivable!” Yamada exclaimed and then continued walking away.

 

 

★   ★   ★

 

 

Yuto’s crate of waffles somehow ended up being stored in the break room fridge and for a while everyone forgot about them. That is, until, Keito managed to overheat the paper shredder.

The machine made a harsh, grating sound as everyone in the office gathered around to stare at it. A few small tendrils of smoke started to rise up from the edges while the thick wad of paper was still stuck in the center.

“Somebody should probably fix that,” Chinen said, while inching away slowly from the machine in case it might explode. The sound of the motor kept getting louder.

“For goodness sakes, turn it off,” Hikaru snapped and then reached down to switch the thing off himself. He hissed and shook his hand as the overheated piece of equipment burned his fingers. But at least it was off now even though it was still smoking.

Yuto set three frozen waffles down on the top of it, looking pleased at his idea to cool down the overheating machine. He looked up and saw the group staring at him. “Do you think that’s enough or should I get more?” he asked, misinterpreting their looks.

“I’m hungry,” Yabu said. He picked up the waffles and wandered away to the microwave in the break room.

Takaki cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t we uh… take the paper out?”

They agreed and took turns yanking out the mangled paper still poking over the lip of the machine. And they threw all the bits at Keito since he’d caused the problem in the first place. He was busy trying to pick up all the pieces from the floor so he had no clue there were a few stray bits in his black hair, looking like snowflakes.

“They don’t make good shredders like they used to,” Hikaru reminisced. “I remember back in the day when I first started working here, I spent hours cleaning out paper shredders with merely a few paper clips…” he trailed off, looking into the distance as he remembered.

“Why would you even do that?” Inoo asked.

“It’s how I climbed so high in the company.” He ignored the question as he continued his storytelling. “By showing off my hard work and determination. Everyone was impressed.” He pounded his fist on the palm of his hand for emphasis.

“But why?” Inoo asked again, louder this time.

Again, Hikaru ignored him. He picked up the shredder and flipped it to the underside to examine more of the wads of half-shredded paper jammed in there. He stuck his fingers in to pull the small paper bits out. And everyone else stared with concern.

“Can’t you lose a finger that way?” Yamada asked.

“Are we liable if our boss loses a finger?” Keito added.

Takaki thought about texting Minseok about that since he was a lawyer but then remembered that they’d agreed to keep their relationship on the down low. It would be best not to mention him at all. Everyone might ask annoying questions if they figured out that he’d saved Minseok’s number under the name _Minseokkie #1 xoxo_ in his phone.

“We’re probably not responsible if we don’t _watch_ him lose his finger,” Chinen suggested. And with that, they all promptly turned around and shuffled to the other side of the room to ignore Hikaru. While they were all discussing the legalities of working with or without all their fingers, Yabu returned munching on a waffle.

“Did you guys see the sign next door?”

“What sign?” and they all went to the nearest window to see. Sure enough, EXOhedsives had a large display in their office window advertising the new product: sticky notes. And there was mention of the upcoming conference that JUMPaper was supposed to be attending as well.

“Hey, that’s what we’re doing too!” Yuto said and leaned forward over Chinen to see better. “Ooh, I like the font they used on the sign.”

“Those fiends!” Inoo declared with dramatically clenched fists, raised in the air like he was about to march into battle.

“Are you really that upset?” Keito asked. He took a step away from Inoo just in case he started swinging his fists around.

Inoo shook his head. “Not really. I just wanted an excuse to use the word _fiend.”_ Everyone nodded since this was a valid reason.

“What are the odds we’d both be promoting the same thing at the same time?” Chinen remarked. “Oh you’re right, that font is fancy.”

“Hey boss,” Yamada called over to Hikaru. “Have you seen what our neighbors are doing?”

Hikaru was on the phone. “No, Daiki, I don’t want the super deluxe ultra power whatever. Just a normal one.” He paused as he listened to Daiki’s response and then pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Yes, a normal sized one.” He paused again and his eyes widened at whatever Daiki said. “You and I have _very_ different definitions of normal-sized! Just whatever. Okay, okay. Bye.”

“What was that?” Yabu asked. He was getting waffle crumbs everywhere. Takaki watched Yamada try to frantically sweep all of the crumbs up, but it was a lost cause. Yabu was absentmindedly waving the waffle around when he wasn’t taking a bite and that left a shower of waffle bits scattered around on the floor.

“The paper shredder is dead. Daiki’s gonna pick up a new one while he’s out.” Hikaru pointed to the shredder which, now devoid of paper, still smelled vaguely like singed ink and fried circuits.

Yuto gasped and turned to Keito. “You killed Shreddie Eddie!”

“You fiend!” Inoo added for good measure and shook his fists again.

“You’ve got to stop naming all the equipment. You get too attached,” Takaki said while giving Yuto a consoling pat on the shoulder.

Yuto sniffed and picked up the broken machine. “I’m going to give Shreddie Eddie a proper sendoff.”

“No!” Hikaru panicked and grabbed the shredder himself. “You’re not allowed to throw equipment from the balcony anymore. Not after the printer incident from last year.”

“But the scattered parts on the pavement are like scattered ashes. It’s all supposed to be very poetic,” Yuto pouted. He tried to make his best sad puppy face, but only Chinen could effectively pull that look off on Hikaru.

“How about eating a waffle in his memory?” Yabu said and gave him one he hadn’t eaten yet. Yuto accepted the gift and ate it with a mournful look on his face. Yamada looked stressed out that the amount of crumbs had just doubled.

Hikaru shoved the dead shredder into the storage closet with all the cleaning supplies no one ever really used. “Well now that’s taken care of—how long has that been there?” He’d just caught sight of the EXOdhesives poster from the window. “Wow, look at that font!”

“Yeah,” Yamada said, forcibly pulling himself away from the crumbs, “looks like we’re now rivals competing for the affection of the customers. Obviously we’ll have to make ourselves look better and work harder to win over the customer’s love. And also their money.”

“This isn’t like those shoujo manga you read,” Keito pointed out. “Like with forbidden romance and all those silly things that usually happen.”

Takaki coughed, focused very intently on the carpet, and hoped no one looked his way.

“Excuse _you,_ I read horror manga.” Yamada looked offended.

“Same difference,” Hikaru said, waving his hand and dismissing the topic. “We should make a poster to advertise our stuff too.”

Inoo grabbed a pen to write down a list of what they’d need. Poster board, designs, glue, cardboard, LED lights. (“Sparkles!” Chinen insisted.) But when they were done brainstorming, they realized they had exactly zero of those items around.

“Hm…” Inoo tapped the pen against his paper. “Well we could go out and get all this stuff… or we could just distract the EXOdhesives guys from promoting their new project.”

The group nodded. “Yeah,” they agreed. “Sounds like a good plan.”

“What’s a good distraction?” Keito asked.

“Prank calls!” Chinen said with excitement. He clapped his hands together and his eyes lit up. “We should call and just tell them weird things.”

Takaki thought he remembered Minseok mentioning something about their phone guy being really strange. But he couldn’t quite remember for sure. And if he warned them, he’d have to admit to where he got the info from, so he said nothing. He was probably misremembering anyway.

Being the tech support guy, Yabu was the one who used the phone system the most. He would often receive calls from people who had trouble with the copy machines or paper shredders or the online supply reorder system. Yabu, of course, had no clue how to help anyone with any of those things but he always happily answered the phone. There were all sorts of people who called their office. One time, there was even some clueless person who called tech support in order to ask how to fold origami cranes and Yabu happily gave the guy detailed directions for over an hour. Incidentally, that was the only time Yabu had ever actually helped someone.

They gathered around Yabu’s desk as he put his headset on and then turned on the speakerphone function. It rang twice before someone picked up.

"Hello, you have reached the desk of EXOdhesives,” the voice came echoed through the phone. “For English, press 1. For Swedish, please sing an aria from your favorite Mozart opera. For Portuguese, please visit São Paulo."

“Yes,” Yabu began and punched number one on his keypad as everyone else exchanged weird looks over the strange greeting. “We’d like to know if your refrigerator is running?”

“Running hot! Running cold! I was running into overload~” the voice on the other end began to warble.

“Wait--this isn’t Mozart!” Yamada hissed, “didn’t he mention opera earlier? Yabu did you press the wrong button--”

Yabu didn’t wait for Yamada to finish speaking, he just slowly reached forward and pressed the button to end the call. That was not the flustered response he was hoping for, something to shock their opponents into revealing top secret info or forgetting about the product they were supposed to be promoting.

“I think… we’re gonna have to come up with a better idea.”

 

 

☎   ☎   ☎

 

 

"Hello, you have reached the desk of EXOdhesives. For English, press 1. For Swedish, please sing an aria from your favorite Mozart opera. For Portugeuse, please visit São Paulo."

Baekhyun waited for the faint _boop_ of the caller pressing something on the keypad before continuing his spiel. "Hello, this is the English language customer service desk of EXOdhesives. How may I assist you?"

"Yes, hi, I'm CL, a representative for Baddest Female Unlimited, the hair products design brand for women with powerful locks. Your online order survey is some messed up shidazzle."

"I'm sorry to hear that, what can I do to ameliorate the situation?"

"Well how about checking your order forms to make sure you haven't been hacked. I'm not submitting credit card info to any online vendor with your company's level of unprofessionalism."

"Unprofessionalism? That sounds nothing like EXOdhesives, ma'am. What exactly is your issue with the order form?"

"For starters, the window that should confirm whether the form has been received just pops up with a gif of an evil clown. Like what the hibiscus cupcakes, seriously. It made me drop my cigar in a vat of experimental shampoo for naturally purple hair. Y'all need to get your act together. Please cancel my order."

"Duly noted, ma'am."

"And this time, will I receive proper notification once the transaction has been suspended?"

Baekhyun couldn't help but jump in his seat when she ended her demand with a growl, voice is hard and cold as the nails she doubt sharpened her fangs on every night before bed. "Yes ma'am, I'll be sure to send an email with your cancellation notice right along."

_"Thank_ you."

Baekhyun clicked open the order form history in his browser tabs as soon as he hung up the phone. He deleted all record of the hair design company's order, and promptly sent CL a textless email with nothing in the body but a gif of Corky with a blood streaked meat cleaver.

"Mission accomplished," he cackled to himself as he leaned back in his chair for nap.

 

 

★   ★   ★

 

 

“Oh, you too?" Minseok whispered with a wry smile when he almost bumped into Chanyeol in front of the secretary desk.

"Mm hm." Chanyeol nodded with a mournful sniff and slid his elbows onto the counter. Baekhyun was on the phone and gestured for them to wait for Kyungsoo, who was in the storage as per usual.

"What are you here for?" Minseok gave his coworker a suspicious look, hoping they weren't about to request the same sort of supplies from Kyungsoo. The head secretary had a quota on daily distributions of each type of office supplies for some reason, and chances were he might deny both of them access if they pissed him off by asking for the same item at the same time.

"I need a refill for my stapler," Chanyeol whispered, staring back with the same distrust and fear of competition clouding his eyes. "You?''

"Just a paperclip." Minseok let out a sigh of relief, giggling under his breath when Chanyeol's worried expression broke into a relieved beam. The official appeal process was far from over, though. They still had to hand over their request forms and demonstrate a proper attitude and necessity to receive the required supplies.

"Is there a problem, gentleman?" Kyungsoo emerged through the swinging doors of the closet with his arms folded primly across his chest. "Or is there any particular reason you are congregating in front of my work zone?"

"I need to request five paper clips," Minseok said with a wave of his painstakingly filled out request form. "Please."

"Hm, I'm not giving out supplies today. Sorry." Kyungsoo gave them a slight shrug, as if he were simply settling his cardigan more comfortably over his shoulders, not deciding the cruel fate of his fellow employees.

"I need a paperclip so I can submit a form with receipts," Minseok said in his firmest voice before Kyungsoo could turn his back on the supplicants. "Just one, Kyungsoo. _One_ measly paperclip! Surely you could help a guy out."

"Not feeling charitable today." Kyungsoo shrugged and fluffed up his bangs as he swiveled on his heels. "Come back later and maybe I'll be feeling more generous. But don't disturb me if I have the 'Experiment In Progress' sign up!" He snapped his head back around to stare down the bridge of his nose at Minseok and Chanyeol. "Yixing and I have a delicate, erm, _process_ underway and I can't have people with ridiculous requests interrupting at the most sensitive of times. Got it?"

"Yes, fine!" Minseok couldn't help but huff back at the head secretary, though that ran the risk of irritating him further.

"No, it is not fine!" Chanyeol slammed his fist into the countertop with a quivery lipped frown, jarring Baekhyun from his reclining position in his desk chair. "It's your job to distribute the supplies as the other employees of this firm require them, it's really fishy when you start refusing to let anyone or anything in or out of the supply closet!"

"Hmph! Joonmyun put me in charge of guarding the supplies, so they get distributed according to my discretion. I humbly suggest that you don't bite the hand that feeds you!" Kyungsoo concluded with a haughty sniff. He pushed through the swinging doors and disappeared into the storage area.

“I know you’re up to something, and I know it’s in that closet!” Chanyeol called after him, shaking his fist until Baekhyun stuck his tongue out at him and Minseok tried to call him down with insistent pats on his elbow.

"Come on, Chanyeol. Let's just try after lunch, why don't we? No sense in getting him riled up to no purpose." Minseok turned to head back to his desk, rolling his eyes when Chanyeol made no immediate move to follow.

"He's up to something, I can feel it in my funnybones," Chanyeol muttered through gritted teeth. "And something tells me it's some secret formula adhesive series they're putting together...either that, or he's in the black market for staples!"

"That--! Is ridiculous," Minseok sniffed, trying to contain his laughter at Chanyeol's final guess as to what Kyungsoo was up to. "It's probably just the new product they're working on to unveil at the conference."

"I suppose." Chanyeol shook his head like a big, slobbery golden retriever and stalked away in the other direction.

Minseok was grateful for the opportunity to slip back to his desk without being forced to spend the next ten to forty minutes listening to Chanyeol continue to vent about Kyungsoo's tight fisted administration, or Baekhyun's complaints about the obnoxious customer service calls he had to field all the time. Unfortunately for him, but not very surprising considering the universe and its impetus to foil his every move in the past few days, a very distraught Jongdae was plucking loose threads from the fringe of Minseok's lap blanket thrown over the back of his desk chair.

"H-hi," Minseok enunciated his greeting to Jongdae carefully as he approached his skittish coworker with slow footsteps. "Is something wrong? Do you need--"

"The poster!" Jongdae's crimped hair fell further into his eyes and he blew the ends up his bangs up, only to huff louder in annoyance when they fluttered back down to hinder his vision a second later.

"The poster?" Minseok repeated with a carefully neutral expression, "you mean the poster Lu Han and the boss are making for the conference presentation?"

"They're insisting that they can't outsource the printing of the promotional fliers or the posters because of sustainability something something, and a bunch of other pretentious mumbo jumbo that you'll have to get Lu Han to repeat to you because I sure have no idea what it all means!"

"Whoa, slow down! Just breathe, Jongdae. Print outsourcing? Oh, is this about the soy ink thing?" Minseok groaned aloud as his fingertips found the knots at his temples and started massaging on their own volition out of habit.

"Yes, exactly! And there is no way I'll be able to convince Kyungsoo to provide the ink and cardstock for 300 fliers! Like, I don't know who Lu Han thinks he's kidding here, but--!" Jongdae's strangled grunt that cut off his words sounded more like a noise a giraffe should have been making, and not a person. Minseok nodded and placed a hand on his coworker's shoulder, kneading his fingers into his back in a gesture of reassurance.

"I'll go talk to the boss about it, try not to worry about it for now, ok?"

"Ok," Jongdae sniffed as he nodded in assent. "Ok, thanks, hyung."

"No problem," Minseok replied as Jongdae trailed down the hall to find a coffee refill in the break room. It was true that he didn't mind trying to help his coworker out of such a sticky situation of course, but he he couldn't say he was looking forward to a three-way negotiation between the stubborn head secretary, the prickly graphic designer, and their overly optimistic boss. He sure had his work cut out for him.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, are you ready to order?" Takaki nudged Minseok's foot under the table and Minseok looked up with a start, flipping the page of the menu automatically. He had scanned the items listed without the information sticking in his brain, and he couldn't remember any dishes he had skimmed over that sounded appetizing enough worth ordering.

"Um, just two more minutes?" He met Takaki's eyes with a guilty smile and shrugged a bit, shifting the menu closer to him for easier perusal.

Takaki tsked with a swish of his head but his fond smile gave away his annoyance as insincere. "That's what you said six minutes ago, Seok. Are you sure you don't want to just order one of everything on the menu and split them?" His smile widened, extra hopeful for a brief moment until Minseok punctured his dreams with an eye roll.

"Don't be ridiculous, there's no way we could finish that many dishes, even if we spent the night here and stuck around for breakfast!" Minseok slid his water glass closer to him on the table so he could sip from the straw comfortably without craning his neck forward to reach it with his lips.

"Hm yeah, I wouldn't want to try that anyway. These chairs don't look too comfy to sleep on..." Takaki rapped his knuckles on the sturdy wooden furniture in demonstration, as if for good luck.

They could both of them use a bit of good luck though, Minseok thought to himself with a sigh, shaking his head again when he realized once again that his attention had gotten sidetracked from deciding on his order. Takaki, despite his patience, was making pitiful hungry faces at him from across the table.

"Ok, ok fine. I'll just order my usual, pork cutlets with shredded cabbage and an iced lemonade slushy," Minseok announced with a nod of finality as he tipped the laminated pages of the foldout menu back into place.

Takaki quickly hailed the nearest waiter with a charming smile and eager wave and placed their order. Minseok felt some of the stress still blanketing his shoulders in an imperceptible layer lift off and float away once they had accomplished that feat, and he leaned forward to search Takaki's face with a smile.

His boyfriend smiled back, though he looked tired and rather run down from stress himself, purple bruises lining the under edges of his eyes like a reverse application of eye shadow. "How was your week, Minseokkie?"

"Ah, the usual. Jongdae is on the verge of another nervous breakdown again because Kyungsoo is being incorrigible and Lu Han is being obnoxious." He rolled his eyes again at the thought of Lu Han's smugly smiling face from behind those ugly black glasses frames and sucked down an inch of the ice water from his glass with the pink bendy straw.

"Hm, sounds about right! Sorry it's been stressful, though." Takaki reached across the table to catch hold of Minseok's fingers, rubbing soothing circles into the back of his hand. "We've had some shenanigans going on at our office, too. Everyone is wound up working on their super secret project for the same conference your office attends every year."

"Oh really?" Minseok was too tired to even think about work right now, his brain more or less a puddle of goo threatening to drip out through his ears at the next sign of personal stress. "But your company doesn't usually send representatives to the annual adhesive designer association's forum, do they?"

"Nah, but they have some sort of overlap product to introduce this year." Takaki shrugged and leaned back in his chair as he continued to rub tiny circles into Minseok's palm and the inside of his wrist.

"Agh, I'll be glad when the stress of preparing for it is all over, though I am grateful I don't have to personally attend." Minseok shrugged and pulled one of his hands away from his boyfriend's grasp to scratch his nose. "I don't like dressing up in formal suits."

"Haha, but you look so cute in a suit though! I mean--suave and handsome," Takaki hastily corrected himself with a stilted laugh when Minseok wrinkled his brow at the mention of 'cute' from his boyfriend's lips.

"I think we ought to go back to wearing togas instead. Wouldn't those be more cool and comfortable than being trapped into a three piece suit in the August heat?"

"Togas?" Takaki's brows slid up behind the veil of his styled bangs with a hum of amusement. "I think you might look great in a tunic, to be honest."

"Tunic? Nah, I had to wear one of those in high school, when we did _Romeo and Juliet_ in theater."

"Wait, you were in theater?" Takaki leaned in to brush the loose strands of Minseok's fringe back from his forehead and Minseok rolled his eyes.

"Yes, we talked about this before. Remember? I told you you were a natural for drama, and you insulted my expertise on the subject until I pulled out my high school year book."

"Oh, oh yeah..." Takaki nodded as Minseok's lips curled up in a seal of triumph.

"And for the record, I'm never wearing a Shakespearean tunic again. The tights, man. The tights were not worth it."

"A doublet and tights have got to be better than wearing one of those heavy dresses though, right? I mean, didn't whoever played Juliet have to wear a gown _and_ tights?" Takaki rattled the shrinking lumps of ice in his glass with a smirk as Minseok nodded in assent. "I bet you looked hot though!"

"Hmmgphlr?" Minseok choked on his next sip of whiskey, the mouthful stinging the back of his tongue and bringing tears to his eyes as he laughed in surprise and tried not to spit all over the lapels of his boyfriend's suit.

"Like, you know, Baryshnikov. Hot in tights."

"Haha, thank you for the compliment, but...!" Minseok rolled his eyes before setting down his glass to flick at Takaki's forehead, soothing the red spot he left behind with a quick kiss before Takaki could whine in complaint.

"Ah, this is just like our first date!" Takaki sighed through his nose as he caught Minseok's fingers in an affectionate squeeze. "Booze and banter, good times!" He gave an obnoxious wink and Minseok tried not to gag at his sap.

"Hey, our first date was at the zoo! Is your brain turning into swiss cheese from the all the stress at work, or something?"

"Ok, not our first date but our first meeting. You know, the first and fateful contract?" Takaki squeezed his hand once more with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Ah, yes!" Minseok nodded along, finally understanding. "'Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight', right?"

"Wait, what is that line from? The new Avengers film?"

"No, idiot!" This time Minseok smacked his forehead with a rap of his knuckles and Takaki wailed in protest. "That's Shakespeare, classier than anything you'll hear in an action film."

"I was just teasing~!" Takaki murmured as he slipped gentle fingers around the curve of Minseok's neck and pulled him close for a side hug. "Come on, it's getting late. You ready to head home?"

"Only if you are," Minseok whispered back, and let his boyfriend tug him down from the bar stool. "Yeah, let's head home."

 

 

☎   ☎   ☎

 

 

“You've reached JUMPaper. I am the Great and Powerful Oz. How may I help you?”

“Uh, my name is Massu and I… just want to reorder some supplies. Your online reorder system isn’t working.”

Have you tried following the Yellow Brick Road?”

“…no?”

“How about clicking your heels together and saying the name of the product three times?”

“…no?”

“Well then, I think you’ll just have to gather up three of your friends—a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion—and come see the wizard.”

“I, uh…? Well I might be able to convince Tegoshi and Koyama to dress up but I don’t think Shige would…”

Hikaru grabbed Yabu’s headset and quickly said “He just means you have to place orders at the store until the online site is fixed.”

“…thank… you?”

Hikaru ended the call and gave Yabu a disapproving look.

Yabu just blinked. “I thought that’s what I said.”

 

 

★   ★   ★

 

 

“Is everybody here?” Hikaru asked.

All nine of them were crowded together in the back room amongst the inventory. Even Daiki was there, but only because his delivery truck had a flat tire. The small, poorly lit room was packed with shelves of the multitude of paper products they sold, arranged neatly by name and then by sales. One by one, they settled down into the cramped space, complaining about errant elbows and misplaced feet as they knocked into one another. Finally they gathered around Hikaru and Yabu who were seated in the chairs at the forgotten old desk shoved into the back corner of the room. Hikaru had placed the desk back there five years ago after a scuffle between Yamada and Yuto left a deep scratch across the wooden surface. Resting on the scratch now was an old dinosaur of a computer which had become useless once the company had upgraded from using Microsoft DOS programs for all their work. Yabu accidentally bumped into the computer modem as he sat down and scattered a cloud of dust into the air.

“Okay,” Hikaru nodded after he stopped coughing from the sudden dust storm. “I declare the meeting for Operation: Distract Our Next Door Neighbors EXOdhesives From Promoting Their Obviously Not as Cool Sticky Notes to be in session.”

“Can’t we shorten the name?” Inoo complained. He tapped his pencil against the side of the pad of paper to take notes on and glared at Hikaru.

“No, no, no, the name is very important,” Hikaru insisted. He straightened his tie like he always did when he wanted to remind them all that he was the boss. “It is the most important part. We can’t even have this meeting without the all-important name.”

“It is a bit of a mouthful though,” Takaki agreed quietly, and then pretended he was looking at the cardstock inventory just in case anyone had heard him.

Yamada turned to Inoo. “Aren’t you just bitter we rejected the name you suggested?”

Inoo frowned as he crossed his arms. “I’m sorry but Operation: Unstickify the Stickers is an excellent name. They specialize in adhesives!”

“We decided that it was _too_ clever,” Yabu said. He had shifted in his seat so that now he was leaning on the computer desk, seemingly oblivious to his elbow resting right smack dab on the middle of the keyboard.

“Well then _I’ve_ decided that Keito should take the notes.” Inoo thrust the notepad into Keito’s unsuspecting hands.

Keito just blinked a few times before sighing. He checked his wristwatch and then wrote down the time and date for the beginning of the meeting, followed by taking attendance with his neat handwriting. Much neater than Inoo’s ever was.

“So _anyway,”_ Hikaru continued. “What’s our game plan?”

“Ooh,” Yuto’s hand shot into the air so fast that it collided with the shelf behind him and a stream of multi-colored index card packets rained down on his head and Chinen’s. Chinen brushed the cards out of his hair and off his clothes while shooting a nasty look at oblivious Yuto.

“Yes?” Hikaru sighed.

“Can we have snacks at our planning meeting?”

“That’s not really importa—”

“I’m going to get some waffles!” Yuto stood up and quickly disappeared from the room, leaving Chinen to continue to dig himself out of the index card mess alone. He gathered up the cards but instead of putting them back on the shelf, he began to stack them in different designs. Daiki scooted a little to the left to avoid getting in Chinen’s way and breaking his concentration.

“Am I supposed to be writing this part down or…” Keito looked confused.

“I suppose we’ll just wait until he gets back,” Hikaru sighed again. He tapped at his watch a few times, hoping that would make time go faster. Nobody was sure how to fill the silence. Last time they had tried to do that during a staff meeting, Yabu had spent an hour explaining in meticulous detail how to fold origami cranes. It had been fun actually until Hikaru had yelled at them for wasting the inventory.

After a few minutes, Yuto returned with warm waffles for everyone and he settled down back in his spot. “What did I miss?”

“Absolutely everything,” Daiki lied. “The meeting is over now.”

“Did I?” Yuto’s eyes started to water. “Oh but I wanted to hear what the plan was.”

Yamada smacked Daiki with some file folders. “This is why we never let you in the office.” He turned to Yuto. “Daiki’s kidding. You didn’t miss anything.”

“Man, these waffles would be good with maple syrup,” Takaki said after his first bite.

Yuto, looking much happier than a moment ago, dug around in the coat he was wearing and pulled out a flask. “Here you go.” He handed it to Takaki as if requests for maple syrup were perfectly normal and commonplace in the office.

“You keep maple syrup in a flask?” Takaki waited as the thick liquid slowly dripped out of the container and onto his waffle.

“It’s for emergencies.”

_“Anyway,”_ Hikaru began again. “What’s our game plan?”

“We need to have secret identities,” Yabu exclaimed. “Like undercover identities so the EXOdhesives guys won’t guess it’s us doing stuff to them.”

“That’s not really importa—”

“So Hikaru,” Yabu continued, cutting Hikaru’s protest short. “You’ll be the brilliant but strange inventor, but all of your inventions do oddly specific things and are easily blown up.”

“Wait, what?”

But Yabu easily ignored Hikaru’s disapproval to continue his identity assignments. “And Chinen can be a high school student investigating paranormal activity.”

Chinen looked up from his index cards and frowned. “Why am I the high school kid?”

“Be grateful I didn’t put you in elementary school.” Yabu glanced around for his next target. “Inoo can be a blind pianist… or perhaps just a waiter at a café.”

“Can I—”

“But you’re not allowed to dye your hair blond if you choose the waiter option because we’ll never hear the end of it.”

Inoo gave him a disappointed look complete with pouty lips, and Daiki patted his shoulder comfortingly.

“Keito can be a fashion designer,” Yabu continued, completely unfazed by everyone’s reactions to his ideas.

“Uh…?”

“Better start practicing your sewing skills now.”

Keito scribbled _LEARN TO SEW?_ at the top of his notes.

“And Yuto will be…” Yabu scratched his chin as he thought. “Hmm… a baseball player! No… ah!” His eyes lit up. “Overly enthusiastic water polo player and Takaki can be your angsty rival.”

“Ooh can we wear speedos??” Yuto asked, already looking the _overly enthusiastic_ part. And Yabu nodded.

Despite his sticky fingers because of the syrup, Takaki managed to send Minseok a quick text. _how do u think id look in a speedo?_

_\--hot, duh. so you’d better not be wearing one in public!!  
\--wait, do i get pics of this? ^^_

_\--pics? ill let you see it in person later ;D_

“Why am I angsty?” Takaki asked as he hastily shoved his phone back into his pocket before anyone started being nosy.

“Because rivals are always angsty,” Yabu explained even though that wasn’t always true at all. Takaki wanted to point out that their EXOdhesives rivals were actually a pretty cheerful bunch from what he’d heard from Minseok, but he figured it was probably best to keep his mouth shut. He’d seen Kyungsoo, the head secretary, a few times and he almost never smiled, so maybe that counted as an “angsty rival.”

“Oh!” Yamada looked excited for his turn. “Can I be like a really cool assassin who’s good with knives and guns and stuff?”

Yabu shook his head and immediately shot down Yamada’s suggestion. “I’m thinking weirdo quirky detective. And Daiki can be your sidekick.”

“Hey!” Daiki complained.

“You’re never here, you don’t get to choose.” He turned back to Yamada. “Maybe next year.”

“And what are you gonna be?” Hikaru asked, looking unimpressed.

“Obviously, I will be the brilliant lab technician who helps solve crimes with my computer.” He turned and began typing confidently at the old computer keyboard.

“You know the computer’s not on, right?”

“Shut up,” Yabu pouted since his cool image was broken.

“…so that was a waste of time,” Hikaru said and straightened his tie once again. But he didn’t realize he’d gripped it too tight and put some wrinkles in it. _“Anyway,_ what’s the game plan?”

“Games are fun! Forget the feud, let’s just play some games,” Daiki suggested. “I think I have Scrabble in my truck.”

“Why do you even—”

“No,” Hikaru interrupted, putting his hand over Daiki’s mouth. “No more tangents. We are staying on topic.” Then he suddenly grimaced. _“Ew._ Did you just lick me?” He glared at Daiki and wiped his hand on his pants. Daiki looked smug.

“I have an idea,” Chinen piped up. They all turned to focus on their youngest coworker who had rearranged his index card mess into something that looked like a floor plan. Apparently the EXOdhesives office floor plan. No one wanted to ask or know where Chinen had gotten that information from. “We’re going to need some alarm clocks…” he said with an evil grin.

 

 

☎   ☎   ☎

 

 

"Hello, you have reached the desk of EXOdhesives. For English, press 1. For Swedish, press pound. For Portuguese, please visit São Paulo."

Baekhyun shifted in his chair and waited for the caller to respond before he spoke again. "Hello, this is the English language customer service desk of EXOdhesives. How may I help you?”

"Ah....this is Jung Yonghwa, the guy who called yesterday about making an appointment. Did I reach the right extension, or should I redial?"

Baekhyun held the phone away from his mouth as he coughed delicately into his palm. "The answer is less of a right and wrong situation, and more of what _feels_ right. For example, when you choose between strawberry yogurt and blueberry yogurt cartons sitting in your fridge, how do you know which one is the 'right' choice?"

"Um...."

"See, the answer is they might both be right. Or the answer might be pickles. But either way, you should always listen to your gut feeling."

"Uh, pickles? Why are we talking about pickles, I just wanted to verify the time and date for my appointment because our conversation got cut off yesterday."

"The question is not why we are talking about pickles, but rather: why _not_ talk about pickles?" Baekhyun could hardly contain his giggles as he held the mouthpiece away from his face again. "So my answer to your original question is: do _you_ think you've dialed the right extension? Or would you like to hang up and try again?"

"Well, I definitely did dial the extension for the Mr. Excellent's Destiny Services and Divinations. I think." The man's voice darkened, as if a frown was clouding his face.

"Hm..." Baekhyun switched tabs on his computer screen to pull up the magic 8 ball app already open in his browser. "Sources tell me that the answer is still pickles."

"I'm so confused..." A heavy sigh echoed across the phone line and Baekhyun grinned in glee, rattling his pinky finger against the spacebar on his keyboard. "I guess I'll call back after lunch. But you can go ahead and confirm my appointment, I guess. Assuming you really are the receptionist I spoke with yesterday. But your voice sounds funny."

"Allergies. Hay fever. Seasonal sniffles. Whatever you want to call them."

"Yes...well. Goodbye."

The connection cut, segueing into a string of loud beeps that continued until Baekhyun hung up the phone. Every once in awhile he got a call from someone even weirder than himself. In fact, those were the ones he enjoyed the most and it was always worth a shot to try to convince a random fellow citizen into liking strawberry yogurt.

 

 

★   ★   ★

 

 

In the morning, Joonmyun and Kyungsoo were usually the first to arrive. They rolled into the parking lot before the other spaces filled in with the steel carcasses of commuter vehicles limned in silhouette by the rising sun.

On this particular morning, both the head dude and the head secretary happened to pull in at the same moment. Joonmyun opened the door of his blue pickup first, rattling his key chain when he waved to Kyungsoo.

"Ah, it feels so good to be alive in the morning!" Joonmyun stretched his arms above his head, twisting his torso in his own private sun salutation before following Kyungsoo up the steps to the back door of the office complex.

Kyungsoo just grunted, flipping his hair out of his eyes as he fitted the key to the lock. Kyungsoo pushed the door open, politely deferring to allow his boss to enter first. When he started to cross the threshold himself, pulling the door close behind him so as not to let the hot summer air infiltrate the back room, a sharp ring issuing from farther inside the building made him freeze, hi-tops squeaking on the polished tile.

"What--what was that?" The sleepy contentment had drained from Joonmyun's voice when he turned to question Kyungsoo with a wild look in his eyes.

Kyungsoo shrugged, but he was already reaching for the can of fire extinguisher encased in a red steel box near the back door. Kyungsoo doubted they actually had an intruder (the most valuable objects kept in their office building were the heavy marble name plates Tao had accidentally ordered) but it was always better to be safe than sorry. That was the company policy after all, when it came down to it. Not to mention the sensitive research currently hidden behind the staple stash in the supply closet and in Yixing's on site laboratory.

"Slowly, slowly! Nice and easy, let's not sneak up on it," Joonmyun narrated in a loud whisper, as if they were hunting bunnies in a meadow. Kyungsoo led the way with confident yet stealthy footsteps, keeping the hose of the extinguisher can extended in front of him.

Then another ring, as sharp in their ears as the smell of Lu Han's homemade kefir in the break room fridge, echoed in the atrium. The farther they stepped into the room, treading carefully along the perimeter of the floor of cubicles, the more pinpoints of noise erupted around them on all sides, shock slamming into the unsuspecting colleagues.

Shock slammed into Joonmyun with each new blast, jerking him back and forth until he knocked into Kyungsoo's back with a clumsy string of muttered apologies. Kyungsoo moved forward on tiptoe, as if the maze of cubicles had transformed into a field of landmines over night while they were away.

Joonmyun grabbed the edge of the nearest desk for support after a particularly panic inducing shock. He whimpered aloud when the particle board vibrated against his hand, rattling the top drawer of Minseok's desk.

Kyungsoo whirled around at the vocalized sound of his boss' distress. He yanked the drawer open, revealing a round purple alarm clock, painted steel with twin bells on top that clanged with incessant fury against the chassis of the clock.

"What the--!"

"Just make it stop!" Joonmyun moaned, releasing his hold on the desk to clamp his hands over his ears. "So. Falootin'. Loud!"

Kyungsoo propped the red extinguisher can in Minseok's orthopedic chair to fumble the switch on the back of the clock into silence. "There, that's one down."

"Crab cakes! How many clocks do you think are hidden in here? Don't you think we should call the police?" Joonmyun's eyes were watering with the pain of metallic voices ringing in his head, and his mind was probably making mental leaps to the absolute worst case scenarios, such as what if one of the ringing clocks was rigged to an actual water balloon bomb and his favorite pinstripe suit got sprayed with sink water while trying to disable the not yet detonated clocks potentially lurking in every employee's desk?

Kyungsoo's thoughts were tempted in a slightly darker direction than the boss'. He was already starting to suspect a certain tall, loud mouthed tech support colleague that had already stated malicious intent and a nefarious desire to find out the secrets of the sacred supply closet. Oh yes, Kyungsoo definitely had a suspect in mind, and he was going to make sure his idiot coworker had hell to pay for this obnoxious prank.

"There better not be any live ferrets hidden in this office! Park Chanyeol knows half of us are allergic to dander, I swear on my gallon of organic grade A maple syrup!"

"What? What are you talking about?" Joonmyun wailed as the secretary set off to investigate the padlocks on the supply closet.

 

_One hour later...._

 

"Boss, are you sure we got all of them turned off?" The dusting rag in Tao's hands twitched as he glanced around the break room with a nervous look in his dark eyes. Lu Han was resolutely patting him on the shoulder in a slow rhythm, though his attention was directed to the Instagram posts he was scrolling through on his phone.

Minseok rolled his eyes in annoyance at Lu Han's blatant show of disinterest in the discussion at hand, but didn't say anything. He knew if he complained the designer would insist he was engaging in important social networking interactions and to please shut up. And Minseok would rather keep silent of his own volition than be told to shut up.

"To answer your question, Tao..." Joonmyun heaved a heavy sigh, as if the weight of all the inevitability in the universe currently rested on the slumped expanse of his narrow shoulders, stuck to the foam pads inside his suit coat like super glue (one of the drawers did, indeed, happen to contain a water balloon….filled with maple syrup, to Jongdae's sadistic glee and Joonmyun's bewildered dismay.)

"To answer your question," Kris stepped in to help his co-manager explain, "who even knows. However, thanks to Baekhyun's metal detector and Yixing's super sniffing sense, we have determined that there are no explosives of the dangerous variety lurking in the room, and there are no poisons or toxins planted by a vicious intruder. This whole, ahem, _incident_ seems to be more of a childish prank than a serious infiltration by a rival or enemy. What do all you guys think?"

"Step one: figure out who the stewed prunes who did this to us are; step two: bombard them with chili cheese waffles," Lu Han suggested, a hint of murderous intent glinting off the frame of his ugly glasses.

"Chili cheese _waffles_?" Jongdae snorted. "Don't you mean chili cheese hot dogs?"

"No, I mean waffles." Lu Han gestured with a elegant motion of his fingers, as if he fancied himself to be a great orator of old. "Waffles are more ironic than processed meats. Processed meats are just, you know, _sad."_

"Well good luck ordering those waffles then, because I ain't about to help you process an order for a product I doubt even exists!"

"Guys, no bickering." Kris shook his head at the arguing employees with a slight frown and squeezed Joonmyun's shoulders when the head dude gave a shaky, long suffering sigh.

"Step one is the easy part," Kyungsoo announced, holding up his tablet on the spread of his palms as if he were bringing an offering of tribute to a prince. "I have it all here, right on the security video footage!"

"No way!" Baekhyun gasped, falling off his perch on the windowsill in an exaggerated display of shock. Even Joonmyun perked up at the news, and everybody turned to face Kyungsoo's triumphant smile in anticipation.

Everyone except for Minseok that is, whose blood ran cold at the mention of security footage. He reached for his phone in his breast pocket, fingers typing out a quick message despite his usual abhorrence of people breaking phone etiquette during business meetings.

"Yes way," Kyungsoo insisted in a steady voice, tapping his pinky finger against the play button at the bottom of the screen. "And it is definitely a business rival after all our secrets, regardless of how innocent this 'prank' might seem to you all. It's the JUMPaper company underlings, and they're after our adhesives."

"Revenge!" Lu Han's laugh sounded more like a feral growl in the back of his throat, and Minseok shivered at the rage seething beneath Yixing's features at the thought of his research privacy protocols possibly having been breached by outsiders.

"Hold it!" Joonmyun's hand raised above his head like a cop at a traffic signal silenced everyone in the room, including Lu Han's bitter ramblings about imperialist spies and the illusion of free speech. "No, I forbid revenge. Good business means playing fair. And since this prank was just the first offense, I forbid retaliation. Is that understood?" He trained his sternest glare on each of them as he circled the room, and even Minseok nodded with sincerity instead of rolling his eyes.

"Got it, no prank war revenge. But may I make a proposal?" Baekhyun waved his hand in the air as if trying to hail a cab from a crowded street corner. Joonmyun paused his stalking to give him permission to speak with a slow nod. "Not a revenge per se, but I vote we send the JUMPaper dudes something in return. Not something so drastic as a declaration of war," he explained quickly, holding up a hand to Kris before the assistant manager had a chance to freak out about his scheme. "Just a gift, a gag gift perhaps. Just with a cheery little note included that will inform them that we know they're up to no good."

"Ah, that's brilliant!" Lu Han clapped his hands together, and all the interns followed suit. Kyungsoo just stared at his co-secretary with hooded eyes, as if trying to determine his ulterior motives for the suggested plan (if there even were any). Jongdae shot Joonmyun and Kris a hopeful look, and Minseok was just glad no one was asking him his opinion or if he knew anything about the incident.

"Alright," Joonmyun nodded with a grudging frown, rising from his perch on his desk to lean into Kris' side. "I tentatively approve this suggestion. But may I ask what sort of gag gift you have in mind?"

"Ah, yes! This is gonna be so good!" Baekhyun rubbed his palms together and cackled in the back of his throat, probably just to draw out the expense and keep everyone waiting for his self-proclaimed brilliant idea. "Get this! We send them _kimchi waffles._ I mean what could be more confusing than that?"

"What indeed," Kris agreed with a solemn nod as he shooed everyone out of the managers' office. "Hey Baekhyun, while you're at it do you think you order some extra maple syrup for--you know, the--uh, maple lattes?"

"No problem!" Baekhyun skipped out of the office with Chanyeol jogging at his side, begging for more details and just how spicy would the confusing waffles be.

Minseok stepped into the bathroom to send a few more messages....


	3. Chapter 3

“If you sink down much further into the seat, your spine might stay permanently curved like that.”

From the passenger seat, Minseok shot Takaki an annoyed look for the comment, but then straightened up a bit before taking another bite of his burger. Takaki watched him move carefully so as not to get any crumbs on the nice seats in Takaki’s car or on his dry-clean only slacks.

“I’m just worried someone might see us. Heaven forbid I get caught ‘fraternizing with the enemy,’” Minseok said and looked around the parking lot. He’d told Takaki earlier all about how his office had reacted to the alarm clock prank, so it wouldn’t look good to be seen together while they were all still upset. And on top of that, Minseok had spent half the ride over complaining about Lu Han and what he would say if he saw Minseok scarfing down a _greasy fast food cheeseburger._

“Well technically, you _are_ fraternizing with the enemy,” Takaki teased as he pulled one of his chicken nuggets out of the grease-stained bag. “I drove all the way out here to the other side of town so that we wouldn’t run into any of our coworkers. So don’t worry. We’re fine. We could even make out in the backseat and no one would know.”

Minseok took a sip of his soda and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you drove aaaall the way out here and that’s why we’ve only got the time to order fast food and then eat it quick in your car before we go back. We don’t even _have_ time to make out.” He took an overly large bite of his burger and stared at the dashboard so intensely that Takaki was sure it would burst into flames in another few minutes.

Takaki frowned as he realized his boyfriend was genuinely upset. Things had been stressful for him at work and having to constantly sneak around didn’t help either. He reached over to pat Minseok’s hair. He liked the comforting feeling of the soft strands on his fingertips. He’d ask Minseok later, when the other guy was in a better mood, about what shampoo he used. “I’m sorry. I wish we both had longer lunch breaks.”

Minseok reached up to gently pull Takaki’s hand away from tangling up the strands. And Takaki knew it wouldn’t look good for him to have his hair look all messed up when he returned to the office.

“How about next week we both just take an extra hour off for lunch?” Minseok suggested. “I’ve got some sick time saved up. I could use that.”

Takaki immediately smiled at the idea. At least, Min was thinking positive now. “Next time, I’ll take you somewhere more romantic. Like the grocery store and we can try all the free samples.” Takaki tried to seductively wiggle his eyebrows but only succeeded in making Minseok snort into his soda.

“Ooh free samples, how sexy,” he answered once he’d cleared the soda out from up his nose.

Takaki grinned.

Minseok checked his wristwatch and tapped the face as if that would change the time on display. He sighed. “We probably need to head back now. Even though I really don’t want to.”

“You worried?” Takaki crumpled up the used napkins and tossed them all into his bag before setting that in the backseat to throw out later. Then he noticed that Minseok’s tie was crooked, so he reached out to straighten it up.

“I’m just stressed out about all the paperwork I need to catch up on, and the office supplies that Kyungsoo won’t give to me, and just the sneaking around in general and not being able to tell anyone about how wonderful you are.”

“Would you like me to strangle you with your tie and then you won’t have to worry about it anymore?” Takaki jokingly offered. He understood because he wished he could tell his coworkers all about Minseok as well. But he doubted that they would understand.

“Yes, please. That would be great,” Minseok laughed again, and Takaki felt that he’d helped a little. He turned the key in the ignition and savored every last moment they had together on the drive back to work.

 

 

☎   ☎   ☎

 

 

“Hi, this is Nakamaru Yuichi. I’m having some trouble ordering some things from the JUMPaper website. I got to the checkout part but it won’t let me actually pay for the order or confirm it.”

“Alright then. Let me ask you a few questions. Up ahead in the distance, do you see a shimmering light? Your head may grow heavy and your sight dim.”

“A- a light? What sort of light? On my computer?”

“Do you hear voices down the corridor?”

“Uh, I’m alone in my house and the sound is off on my computer…?”

“Do you dance to remember? Or dance to forget?”

“…what does that have to do with anything?”

“Are those voices still calling from far away? Do they wake you up in the middle of the night?”

“What voices?”

“Are there mirrors on the ceiling? Pink champagne on ice?”

“What are you—”

“Did you stab it with a steely knife, but you just can’t kill the beast?”

“I think I have the wrong number…”

“Relax, man. You can _checkout_ any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Before Nakamaru could say anything else, Yabu pressed the hold button, leaving the familiar strains of The Eagles’ _Hotel California_ behind to play through the speakers.

“Hikaru’s gonna make you change the hold music if you keep doing that,” Inoo said.

 

 

★   ★   ★

 

 

“Oh no! Oh no no no no no no!” came a panicked voice from inside the copy room.

Takaki and Inoo who were walking by peeked inside to see what was going on. What they saw was Keito frantically pressing buttons on the copy machine, looking more and more concerned with each jab of his finger. A high-pitched whine was coming from the machine along with a few more noises it didn’t normally make. A few papers had shot out of the tray and had landed crumpled up on the floor. Takaki couldn’t make out what was on the paper, but it didn’t look like it was printed correctly. And then, all of a sudden, the copy machine shuddered to a complete stop and went dark.

“That’s concerning,” Inoo announced casually as if he saw copy machines melt down every day. He and Takaki walked over to examine the situation. Keito was busy holding his head with his hands and muttering something about how it’s always his fault.

“Yeah that looks pretty broken,” Inoo continued, still in a tone where he could have been announcing the weather.

“I didn’t even do anything.” Keito looked distraught.

The commotion had caught the attention of the rest of the group and one by one they came to see what was happening as well. Each head popped into the room, looking for any excuse to avoid work and figure out what was causing all the commotion. They hadn’t had this much excitement in the office since the last time Keito had broken something.

“What did you do to Naruto?” Yuto gasped. He gave Keito the most offended glare he could muster up. “Did you kill him like you killed Shreddie Eddie?” he continued while pointing an accusing finger.

“Naruto?” everyone questioned at once.

“You know,” Yuto explained with some fancy hand flourishes, “the ninja who always makes copies of himself. It’s a perfect name.”

“That’s dumb,” Hikaru pointed out. “Stop naming all the equipment.”

“Well the copy machine was kinda loud like Naruto too,” Yuto added.

It was pretty much pointless to try to argue with Yuto.

“Keito,” Hikaru began in his stern boss voice since Yuto was a lost cause. He placed his hands firmly on his hips, making him look a bit like a frustrated mother. “Please stop breaking all our things. Or you’re gonna have to pay for all of it.”

“But I didn’t even do it,” Keito continued. He picked up some of the misprinted papers on the floor and threw them into the trash can. “It just broke on its own.”

“Maybe it’s possessed,” Yamada suggested, suddenly very excited about the possibility. He’d been trying to convince everyone there was a ghost haunting the back corner of the bathroom for years. But no one ever believed him, even after he’d hired those paranormal investigators to check it out.

“In that case, I can do an exorcism,” Takaki said as he pulled out a tiny bottle of hairspray from his pocket. The whole group turned to stare at him in confusion.

“Okaaaay, ignoring the fact that you just offered to _perform an exorcism,”_ Inoo began, “Why do you have hairspray? Who actually carries around bottles of hairspray?”

Takaki shrugged and took off the cap of the bottle. Minseok had given the bottle to him last week as a present. So, of course, he kept it with him in case of emergencies. “Who doesn’t?”

Chinen’s quiet answer of “bald people” was drowned out by the sound of Hikaru half-tackling Takaki and yelling at him for attempting to put hairspray on electrical equipment.

“You’re not a licensed professional!” Hikaru screeched. He managed to grab the bottle and throw it away. It unfortunately connected with the side of Keito’s head.

“Aw, I wanted to see if it worked,” Yabu said. “I think my computer is possessed because it’s just had a black screen all morning. Very creepy.”

“Oh, Sadako?” Yuto asked casually like the computers were also coworkers and often had routine ghost-possession problems.

“Is _that_ what you’re calling my computer?”

HIkaru paused in the middle of trying to put Takaki in a headlock to remind Yabu that he just hadn’t turned his computer on yet. Meanwhile, Yamada was tentatively poking the side of the machine while Inoo had opened up the front panel to examine it.

Yuto leaned over Inoo’s shoulder to get a good look at the copier’s insides as well. “All the chakra points are blocked,” Yuto said, pointing to the fried circuitry. “I can fix that.” He pulled out some rubber bands.

“Your Naruto analogy has gone too far,” Chinen said and took the rubber bands away from Yuto. Technically Yuto had been banned from using them in the staff meeting last week after he wouldn’t stop hoarding them all and calling himself The Rubber Band Man.

“What’s this about ninjas?” Daiki asked as he poked his head into the copy room. He had a package in his hands. “Should I be worried?”

“No one needs to worry about ninjas,” Hikaru sighed. He took the large package out of Daiki’s hands and set it on top of the broken copier. “What’s this?”

Daiki shrugged. “I dunno.”

“What kind of delivery guy are you?” Inoo teased.

“One who’s on break right now,” Daiki said as he plopped down in a chair. “So what’s in the mysterious package? It doesn’t have a return address.”

“It says ‘from your secret admirer’ on it,” Chinen read the label decorated in a super elaborate font. “That seems suspicious.”

“You’re so paranoid,” Yuto said and flicked a rubber band at Chinen’s face. “Somebody obviously loves us. We’re awesome.”

Chinen easily dodged the rubber band and looked annoyed. “Didn’t I just take away all your rubber bands? Where are you hiding them?”

Yuto just grinned and answered “I’m the Rubber Band Man.” Chinen looked like he was about physically search Yuto for his stash, but then he decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Yuto was so tall, there were just too many potential places to hide things.

“We probably don’t want to know,” Yamada added.

Hikaru waved his hands to interrupt the conversation. “Whatever. Just someone open the box.” He held out a pair of scissors for whoever the (un)lucky volunteer was.

“Keito should do it,” Inoo suggested immediately.

“Why me?”

“Because you killed Naruto,” Yuto said.

“And because you’re still the new guy,” Yabu added.

Keito began muttering something about working seven years and needing to find a better job, but he took the scissors and opened up the box nevertheless, quickly slicing through the massive amounts of packing tape on the box.

“…waffles?” he questioned as soon as he saw the contents inside.

“Waffles?” Daiki repeated. “If I’d known it was food I wouldn’t have kept it in my truck all day long.”

“Ew,” Inoo grimaced.

“Eh, it looks okay,” Yabu said, poking tentatively at one of the waffles. They looked mostly normal and not really as squishy as they could have been.

Everyone picked out a waffle because they decided they couldn’t pass up free food, no matter how mysterious and no matter how long it’d been sitting out in Daiki’s hot truck. Chinen spent a while sniffing his suspiciously before taking a bite, but everyone else was happy for the food. But it soon become apparent right after they all tasted the waffles that this was a mistake. A nasty mistake.

“Ugh! What is this flavor?” Hikaru choked out with bits of food still in his mouth. He looked like he was having some difficulty swallowing the food.

“Ah, it’s spicy,” Daiki cried out. “I can’t stand spicy things.” He stuck his tongue out and looked around frantically as if a bottle of water or milk might appear out of thin air. Over in the corner of the room, Yuto was trying to douse the remainder of his waffle in maple syrup to drown out the spicy taste, but it didn’t seem to have any effect.

Even Keito who liked spicy things just laid his waffle down on the table with an unimpressed look. They asked why and he simply said “I don’t like kimchi-flavored stuff.”

“I do,” Yamada said, the only one left still happily munching on his waffle. He held his hand out. “I’ll take them.”

“You really like them?”

“They’re amazing! I love kimchi so much.”

“You’re a crazy person,” Yabu said.

“I can’t feel my tongue,” Takaki announced. “I think I’m dying.” He had heard from Minseok that his company might be getting revenge, but he hadn’t remembered that when the mysterious waffles had shown up. He really should have known better. Minseok had fixed him some kimchi for dinner once and it had not turned out as a very pleasant experience.

Chinen patted Takaki’s shoulder in an attempt to be comforting. “It’s just kimchi. You’re gonna be okay.”

“Who would send this?” Hikaru asked.

“Obviously someone who hates us.”

“Or loves us,” Yamada interjected between waffle bites.

“Maybe it was EXOdhesives?” Inoo suggested. “Revenge for the alarm clock prank?”

“This is a delicious, delicious prank,” Yamada said happily.

“This calls for retaliation,” Yuto declared and armed himself with more rubber bands. Everyone had forgotten all about the broken copier. It’s not like they had accomplished any work in the past week anyway.

Hikaru nodded in agreement. “I have an idea. Daiki, I need you to go out to pick up some plastic wrap…”

 

 

★   ★   ★

 

 

“Alright team,” Hikaru said as he passed out cheap black sunglasses to his group. “We need to be stealthy.” They were almost all gathered in a circle in the office before they made the trek next door to carry out their devious plan. Yuto was the only one running late.

“Stealthy. Right. Got it,” Yabu said and then stumbled right into the trash can at the corner of Inoo’s desk, spilling crumpled up finance reports on the carpet. Hikaru took Yabu’s sunglasses back and suggested that maybe he could stay behind to be tech support or moral support or something.

“You can be the brilliant lab technician who works from the office, just like you said in our planning meeting,” Keito comforted Yabu and patted him on the shoulder. Takaki kicked the trash into a small pile with his foot.

“You know we’re not actually doing the undercover identity thing, right?” Yamada said.

“We’re not?!” Now Keito was the one looking upset. “Then why did I spend all that time learning to sew these masks?” He held up some black fabric shaped like a ski mask with holes cut out for the eyes.

“We’re just plastic-wrapping the office, not robbing them,” Daiki said. He picked up one of the masks and examined it more closely, looking at all of Keito’s careful stitching. He stretched the fabric to test it out. “Ooh, we should take these and go on a company ski trip this year.”

“I’d rather go to the beach,” Takaki said as he put his black sunglasses on in slow motion just to up his cool factor.

“Nobody is going anywhere except next door to the EXOdhesives office,” Hikaru reminded them sternly while waving a plastic wrap container in the air.

Suddenly, Yuto walked in the room holding a large cardboard box.

“I’ve brought the chickens!” he declared.

“I—uh, _what?”_ Hikaru stuttered.

“I thought we could do this prank too,” Yuto explained. He set the box down and picked up both of the chickens inside. “This is Number One,” he held out the chicken with the number painted on its side, “and this is Number Three.” The chickens clucked happily.

“Where’s Number Two?”

Yuto grinned. “That’s the prank! There is no Number Two. You set these loose and they spend all day looking for a chicken that doesn’t exist. Hilarious right?”

Hikaru shook his head. “There will be no pranks involving live animals.”

“Isn’t that a little harsh in retaliation for just some kimchi-flavored waffles?” Chinen asked. He had never really liked animals, so he subtly scooted closer to the door and tried to casually hide behind Yabu.

Yuto made a face like a sad puppy and regretfully set the chickens back inside the cardboard box. Inoo knelt down beside the box and gave the birds some leftover waffles to eat.

“Look you guys, chicken and waffles!” Inoo laughed, but no one else paid much attention to him. He pouted when no one really cared about his joke.

“Hey, I was gonna eat those kimchi waffles,” Yamada complained and reached in to get his food back. But Number Three clucked loudly at him and Yamada hastily withdrew his hand. “Okay, okay. You can have them.”

Hikaru clapped his hands for attention. “We should get moving. We can deal with the chickens again later.” He put his own sunglasses on and pointed dramatically towards the door.

“Have fun storming the castle!” Yabu called out after them with a wave for good luck.

“Let’s go!” Hikaru led the group out of their office, each person moving quickly and quietly. Nobody made a sound until they reached the courtyard separating the two buildings. That’s when Hikaru’s cellphone rang, startling them all half to death. “Yes Kota?” Hikaru answered, wondering what Yabu could possibly need since they’d only been gone about two minutes. “Oh. Okay then.” He hung up the phone and scratched his head in embarrassment. “Seems like we... forgot the plastic wrap. Chinen, could you go back and grab it?”

Chinen nodded and disappeared like a ninja in the night. In the meantime, the rest of them just had to wait. They kind of awkwardly shuffled around the courtyard and tried not to look super suspicious. But it didn’t take long for Chinen to return with an armful of plastic wrap boxes which he distributed out to everyone. Then Chinen, of course, expertly picked the lock to the EXOdhesives office. The youngest member of their office had quite the impressive skill set.

“Special delivery!” Daiki said in a creepy voice and then cackled once they were all inside. “What?” he added once he saw everyone giving him weird looks. “I’m a delivery guy and we’re… oh nevermind. I’m going to find the bathroom.” Daiki took his plastic wrap and left.

Soon they were spread out all over the office, putting the stuff everywhere. The EXOdhesive guys were going to have a hard time when they came back to work in the morning. Plastic wrap was a pain to unwrap from things. (They discovered this as Keito had immediately gotten himself tangled up in his own wrap as soon as they had begun their dirty work. “Why did you have it on your head anyway??”)

“Are you going to wrap every single item on that desk?” Yamada asked Inoo as he watched the other guy gleefully bundle the stapler and the tape dispenser together in about three layers of the stuff.

“I don’t know who Kyungsoo is but he’s gonna have lots of fun tomorrow,” Inoo said and reached for the computer mouse.

Nearby, Yuto had gotten distracted in his mission by reading the to-do list left behind on Park Chanyeol’s desk. Number one on the list was _get rubber bands from Evil Overlord Kyungsoo_ followed by an elaborate list of plans to go about accomplishing what seemed to be a difficult task. Yuto was feeling generous so he dug around in his pockets for his secret stash of rubber bands. He laid a wad of them on the desk and grabbed a notepad. _From the Rubber Band Man,_ he wrote and laid that on top of the pile. Feeling satisfied, Yuto then proceeded to use the entirety of his plastic wrap to wrap all of Chanyeol’s desk drawers completely shut.

While chaos was unfolding all around the EXOhesives office, Takaki found some peace and quiet in Minseok’s office. He’d decided to spare his boyfriend from the plastic wrap mayhem, so instead Takaki just plopped down and made himself comfortable in Minseok’s chair. He spun around a few times just to enjoy the cushy fabric of the seat. His own office chair wasn’t nearly as plush and he made a mental note to complain about that to Minseok later. Maybe he could get some sympathy kisses out of his boyfriend that way.

He glanced over the paperwork left on the desk, but Takaki wasn’t too interested in his lawyery stuff. There was more than enough of that during their contract meetings. Instead, Takaki grabbed Minseok’s notepad and a pen to leave a note behind. It wasn’t exactly a love note, but he did draw some hearts and smiley faces around the edges for good measure. _Sorry for all the craziness that’s probably going on right now. At least it makes work more exciting right? Anyway, have a lovely day and see you later tonight ;D Love, you-know-who (but not the one from Harry Potter)_

Before Takaki could do anything else, Keito stuck his head in the door. He still had pieces of plastic wrap in his hair. “Oh, there you are. Hikaru said it’s time to make our dramatic escape.” He tossed one of the ski masks to Takaki and disappeared out the door again. Takaki sure as hell wasn’t going to mess up his hair by putting a mask on, so he just put his sunglasses on and tried to look as cool as possible as he walked out of the building in slow motion for dramatic effect.

 

 

☎   ☎   ☎

 

 

"Hello, you have reached the desk of EXOdhesives. For English, press 1. For Swedish, press pound. For Portuguese, please visit São Paulo."

Baekhyun waited for the faint _boop_ on the other end of the line before continuing. "Hello, this is the English language customer service desk of EXOdhesives. Hur kan jag hjälpa dig?”

"Hello! This is Lee Donghae, the sales representative from SUPER Silicone Production Labs. Your company placed an order for the new experimental liquid vinyl we've been developing, and I need to speak with a manager."

"I'm afraid no one in management is available to speak with you at the moment. Could you call back later? Kanske efter Julsemestern?”

"Excuse me, what?"

An awkward coughing sound filtered over the into Baekhyun's ears, and he smiled.

"We're a bit busy until after the AAAD conference. If you would like to leave a memo with your name and address, vi ska se till att inkludera dig på vår semester e-postlista."

"I'm sorry, the line must be breaking up because I have no idea what you're saying. Could you repeat that bit?"

"Bit? You know, en ren bet min syster en gång.”

"Sir, I apologize but I'm going to disconnect the call now and try again later. Good afternoon."

"God Jul!"

Baekhyun couldn't wait for the holidays to roll around that year. He pulled out a candy cane from his desk drawer before resuming updating the design on the online order survey, because mint was such a mental refresher on long afternoons.

 

 

★   ★   ★

 

 

"What the--!" Tao tripped across the plastic wrap stretched across the back doorway like a bandage, or like a humongous strand of silk in a gigantic spiderweb, Minseok thought with an ominous shiver.

"Oh no, not again!" Joonmyun tripped over the same strip in the walkway, the plastic snapping so he stumbled forward. Kyungsoo caught him by the collar of his checked shirt so the boss wouldn't faceplant on the tile in the back room.

"Well I guess it was a good thing we all decided to show up early just in case." Minseok was trying to think on the bright side, but as he glanced around the shiny, saran wrapped surfaces of the room his mood was rapidly nose diving like Joonmyun had almost done.

"I guess I'd better start camping out in the supply closet to keep watch," Kyungsoo announced to no one in particular. "Chanyeol, can you fetch your needle nosed pliers from your technician's tool kit? I think we're going to need something more heavy duty that letter openers and safety scissors to remove all of this mess."

"Hmph!" Chanyeol marched across the rows of cubicles to find his desk. He swiveled, shoving his arms across his chest to glare at the head secretary. "You never share with me! So why should I be inclined to return the favor!"

"For pizza's sake, Park Chanyeol! Let's not get personal here, okay! This is not about me or you or our relationship, this is about working together for the good of the company!"

"Excuse you!" Chanyeol dropped his arms from their defensive position to point an accusatory finger at the glowering secretary. "But since when is denying your coworker a mere rubber band--a rubber band essential to keeping the communication lines of this corporation fit and running, may I add--in the best interest of the company? No, I think this situation is very personal, and I intend to enjoy your _personal_ pain and frustration for just a beautiful minute here!"

“Wait, didn’t someone called the Rubber Band Man leave you a note and bunch of rubber bands, Chanyeol? Why do you need more?” Kris supplied helpfully, though everyone ignored him.

"Chanyeol!" Kyungsoo's face deepened from an irritated pink to an incensed fuschia as he advanced on the giggling support tech. "Scissors! Now!"

"Um, wow! Well would you look at that!" Chanyeol stepped back to wave at the drawers of his desk. "See? All of my important desk supplies got mummified in this plastic stuff! I guess I won't ever be able to share with you again!"

"Take it off, Chanyeol! And knock off the attitude while you're at it." Kyungsoo hunkered his shoulders forward as he strode directly for Chanyeol.

"Hey, guys! Can we just--!" Kris hopped between the arguing employees, extending his over sized arms to keep them at a distance so Kyungsoo couldn't pummel Chanyeol with any non-plastic wrapped objects he might have been able to get his hands on.

"Seriously, fighting amongst the ranks is what the enemy no doubt intends to befall us." Sehun stepped in from around the corner, Tao and Jongin close on his heels. "Now is the time for solidarity! Now is the time to _strike."_

"Ah, I don't think _striking_ anyone is necessary," Kris cautioned, flailing his oversized hands in Kyungsoo and Chanyeol's faces. "Right, Joonmyun? Don't you think we should just--"

"I think Sehunnie is right." Joonmyun pulled himself up to his full height, tension pulling every centimeter of him taut, from the platform heeled boots encasing his feet to the quiver of his fluffy blonde hair atop his head. "This--" he waved around the sterilized scene in the office, which looked like the set for a medical horror drama, or perhaps the inside of a UFO laboratory, "means war!"

And the first step of heading to war, as Joonmyun immediately declared to any employees willing to listen, was to collect intelligence to inform battle strategies. Taking initiative on the boss’ abstract suggestion, Chanyeol dragged a large potted plant over to the biggest window of their office, the one that faced the JUMPaper office across the courtyard, to use as camouflage for their initial stakeout.

“Here, these are for you,” Kyungsoo whispered, handing out pairs of binoculars to enhance the watchmen’s effectiveness as they gathered around to spy on their enemies. “But don’t scratch the lens!”

They didn’t have any way to tap the other office, which Joonmyun would doubtlessly have prohibited anyway because that would be illegal. Fortunately for the EXOdhesive war council, however, JUMPaper employees had neglected to close their window and the brick walls of the courtyard acted as a natural sound amplifier.

Across the courtyard through the open window, they could see several JUMPaper employees gathered around a strange box, looking curious. The box was about the size of a microwave and brightly colored and it had the words _SUGGESTION BOX_ emblazoned on the front in big, bold letters.

“So Hikaru just left this here this morning?” a JUMPaper employee Minseok recognized as Chinen questioned. He cautiously tapped the side of the box, but it still sounded like ordinary normal cardboard. “That’s super weird.”

“And suspicious,” a guy named Inoo said. “Hikaru always just ignores any suggestions we’ve had in the past.”

Yamada, the first of Takaki’s coworkers Minseok had learned the name of because he was just so cute, rapped his knuckles on the top of the box and put his ear up to the lid to listen. “Well it doesn’t seem like a trap rigged to explode. Perhaps we should… put something in it?”

Yabu, the tech support guy, handed Keito some paper and a pencil. “You can do the honors.”

Keito opened his mouth to protest but then sighed instead, like this happened to him all the time. He tapped the pencil on the paper for a moment while he thought of a good suggestion to write down.

“Hm… casual Fridays every day?” he said out loud as he wrote it down.

Yuto laughed, his voice echoing into the courtyard and drowning out the beginning of his next sentence. “....Chinen already does that.”

Chinen, who had pulled up a chair and had kicked his sneaker-clad feet up on the nearest desk, just grinned as he rested his hands behind his head.

“Oh! I know!” Takaki said. “We should have an extra half hour during lunch.”

That’s my man, Minseok nodded with approval, glad to hear Takaki’s sensible suggestion that would make it easier for them to sneak out on secret lunch dates--that is, until he caught Kyungsoo staring at him with a suspicious frown and Minseok quickly wiped the smile off his own face with a muffled cough.

Everyone in the other office nodded in agreement with Takaki’s suggestion and Keito quickly scribbled it down. They all got quiet, the EXOdhesive employees holding their breaths too as Keito held the paper up over the tiny slit in the top of the box, and then he pushed it through. Suddenly there was the unmistakable sound of a paper shredder turning on. As soon as the paper disappeared through the hole, Yamada opened up the top of the box. Sure enough, there was an ordinary paper shredder inside.

“Oh hey, that’s where the new paper shredder I delivered went,” a guy named Daiki said.

“Shreddie Eddie 2.0,” Yuto corrected him.

“We should have known better,” Inoo said with a sigh.

From nearby, they heard the sound of Hikaru’s evil boss laughter. “That’s right,” he said, stepping out from around the corner where he apparently had been waiting for them to try out the suggestion box ruse. “That’s how I feel about suggestions. Especially the one about getting an extra lunch break. In fact,” he made an overly dramatic hand motion to look at his watch, “lunch break started 20 minutes ago.”

“Crap!”

They all scrambled to grab their stuff for lunch break. All except for Yabu, who had a devious grin of his own. He hooked his arm around Hikaru’s and looked smug. “I think it’s time for our boss to treat us to lunch anyway. Who’s feeling a craving for something really expensive?”

“I am!” Chinen said and they all cheered and followed as Yabu dragged a protesting Hikaru out of the office and out of sight.

As it turned out, despite Joonmyun's intense declaration to strike back this time (apparently once was enough to turn the other cheek when sacred adhesive experiments and the future of the universe's aesthetic sticky notes were on the line), the plan unanimously voted upon by the group their operations would start with a reconnaissance mission prompted by the need for more intelligence than they had just overheard.

Minseok had mixed feelings about the whole thing. He had raised his hand in support of the plan when they had put it to a vote, though on the inside his wish to remain neutral or try to dissuade the situation from escalating needled his stomach with a feeling akin to guilt. He didn't want to arouse anyone's suspicion, and he definitely didn't want to endanger his boyfriend in any way.

No, Minseok's plan was to personally stay out of the cross fire and try to talk to Joonmyun and Kris privately once the first spies had deployed on their mission.

The spies were the three interns, of course, led by Sehun himself. Sehun wore an expression of near divine inspiration and determination, as if this mission were his personal calling, as he had indeed been born to lead the EXOdhesive employees to victory. Chanyeol got a bit choked up pulling a ninja mask over the tallest interns noble face.

"You go get'em, Sehunnie! We know they were shaken up by the kimchi waffles, so now you’ve gotta stake out the office and help us find a way to strike back! Hurry back and report to us, okay?"

"No men left behind," Jongin murmured through a yawn, shaking his head as he pulled on his own black mask as if to clear the sleepiness from his breakroom nap time from his brain.

"And no canines, either!" Tao clutched his puppy to his chest with a gentle reverence, holding Candy's fluffy white head close to his chin. He nuzzled the sides of her face while he held a crumpled bit of cardboard up for her to memorize the scent. It was part of a box of plastic wrap, found at the scene of the crime next to Minseok's desk.

(Fortunately for Minseok's sake, the evidence had been enough of a distraction that no one noticed the sticky note message Takaki had left him.)

"Go with my blessings," Joonmyun sniffled, turning away to bury his nose in a wrinkled hankie as the three intern's saluted and filed towards the elevator.

"We shall return, O Captain, my Captain!"

With a final salute, Sehun and his cohort disappeared from view as the elevator doors slid closed with a _click_ of finality and inevitability.

 _\--I hope you guys are out to lunch, because something's heading your way..._ Minseok typed quickly to Takaki.

_\--we left late but we’re all out eating now. what’s up?_

_\--not at liberty to expound on the activity but...I hope none of you all are allergic to dogs??_

_\--OH NO!!_

Takaki's response had Minseok's heartbeat racing in his throat even though he wasn't sure what Takaki's urgent response indicated. He raced to go after the young spies, but it was too late. The elevator was already descending as if bent on the same course of destruction as Sehun. Minseok jabbed the _down_ button repeatedly, but it was no use. He'd just have to wait for the next elevator to take him after the interns.

 _Rats,_ Minseok thought to himself, trying not to look distressed or suspicious as Lu Han passed by with a scrutinizing look and a steaming mug of fair trade coffee. He could probably catch them in time, but he'd have to run. Minseok hated running.

Minseok never saw Takaki's reply about the chickens. Well, he did later, much later, after all of the tension and strife had become a thing of the past and all was well and charitable with the world. The first hint of the trouble that Takaki had tried to forewarn Minseok of via text came in the form of a growl from Candy. Minseok could hear her cute little snarls echoing across the parking lot and courtyard as he sprinted after the ninja spies and their canine assistant.

He dashed up the back stairs once he trailed them into the JUMPaper office building, hoping to avoid the security cameras in the elevators since he wasn't wearing a ninja mask himself. Flight after flight he sprinted up and up, the air burning against the lining of his lungs like hydrochloric acid vapors the higher he climbed, and the dog's angry growls grew louder too, until she was barking without holding anything back by the time Minseok reached the top of the stairs just on Jongin's heels.

"Don't! Don't open the--!"

But once again Minseok's cries were too late. Sehun's hand was already turning the knob, and a furious flurry of white feathers greeted them instead of an empty office. The JUMPaper employees were all out to their celebratory lunch, but the interns charged into the office heedless of the threat posed by the live chickens Minseok imagined would be guarding the office atrium like some kind of barnyard sphinxes.

"Hot diggety air balloon!" Jongin shrieked until he realized there was nothing actually pecking at the heels of his Air Jordans that stuck out like a sore, red thumb with the rest of his subdued black outfit. The feathers had belonged to some fake chickens that the JUMPaper guys had apparently set up as some sort of booby-trap.

Tao, not realizing the chickens weren't real, screamed loudly as he ran into the darkened office interior where Minseok shuddered to think what kind of living horror might await them.

"Guys! Let's get out of here, okay? Why don't we just invite the JUMPaper guys over for a cup of ironic fair trade coffee and work things out like adults!" Minseok flapped his arms, as if that might help attract their attention in a room full of flailing ninjas and fake chickens. Black and white streaks of panic were hurtling everywhere, like piano keys in a tornado, and though Minseok was shouting as loud as he could to calm everyone down he could barely hear his own voice over all the commotion.

"Guys! _Please,"_ he wheedled with a note of desperation in his voice. Minseok gasped in a sigh of relief when Sehun froze to look at him, a waffle he'd just discovered held at arm's length in his black golfing gloves that covered his palms, but alas. Sehun wasn't paying any attention to Minseok at all, but at the rightful owners of the office who had just arrived back from their lunch break.


	4. Chapter 4

“INTRUDER ALERT!” Inoo shouted even though they all could clearly see the people right in front of them, out of place in what should be the empty JUMPaper office.

“ABORT!” Tao yelped, grabbing Candy from where she had been sniffing with furious interest at a Tarako paperweight on a computer desk and a large cardboard box sitting nearby.

“Guys! Can we just try to talk this--” Minseok whispered out of the corner of his mouth in Takaki’s direction, glaring.

“Let’s not be hasty--” Takaki tried to calm his panicking coworkers.

“Hasty? My middle name is precision!” Sehun placed his black golfing glove covered hands on his hips and looked about for a window to escape through. Yamada rushed towards the window and threw his hands out to switch the lock, trying to cut off Sehun’s potential escape. Sehun tackled Yamada with a fierce yell of battle.

While the ninja wannabe and Yamada were locked in hand to hand mortal combat over the open window, a delighted cry caught Minseok’s attention.

“Candy! What is it girl?” Jongin followed after the puppy when she wriggled free from Tao’s cradling grip and hurtled like a fuzzy arrow towards the box again. “Did you find a clue?”

Candy growled, snuffling and scratching at the laminated pressboard.

“Nooo, not that cabinet!” Hikaru said. He quickly loosened his tie and pulled it off before pushing up his shirt sleeves and getting down to business to defend the office. He tried to shoo the small dog away from the cabinet, but got distracted as some paper airplanes whizzed past his head. He turned to see Yabu folding up more paper airplanes as he sheepishly explained he had been aiming for the enemy but the air currents in the room were all wrong.

“Exooooo! We are ooooone!” Tao screamed, charging Keito with a mop he grabbed from the corner. Keito shrieked and dived under Inoo’s desk, knocking the trash can over in the process. No one bothered to pick it up this time though.

Sehun twisted his head free from Yamada’s death grip on his jaw to holler towards the courtyard for reinforcements. “Yehet!”

An answering, “Ohorat!” rang from the brick walls of the courtyard below, a voice Minseok recognized as Baekhyun’s with a sudden chill creeping up his spine.

“Don’t you think this is taking things a bit far? Guys? Guys!?” No one paid any attention to Minseok though, even when he got onto a blue rolling chair to flap his arms to call the room to order. He tried to find Takaki in the chaos. Takaki was his sun in the storm of insults and shrieks bombarding the room.

No one paid any heed to Candy either, who had succeeded in pushing the box across the floor, getting dangerously close to Sehun and Yamada’s grappling footwork just as the cardboard capsized.

Two real, _live_ chickens tumbled out, fighting mad. Candy let out a howl that would have been terrifying if it weren’t so cute coming from a little fluffball, and chased the foul across the office in a streak of blazing white.

While everyone tried to avoid getting in the way of the animal fight, Yuto had managed to climb on top of his desk with Shreddie Eddie 2.0 in his hands. With a dramatic battle cry, he dumped the contents of the paper shredder onto the head of the nearest person, Jongin, but was disappointed when only a few shreds of paper fell out. Jongin blinked and looked up at Yuto with a confused face.

“I emptied that yesterday,” Yamada said through gritted teeth over by the window. Sehun had him in a headlock at the moment.

“Hah! Take that, you rat catcher!” Chanyeol burst through the stairwell door, wielding a roll of industrial saran wrapper as long as he was tall like a fencing foil. He doubled over with a fantastic sneeze as the animal chase blazed by again.

“Bless you,” Keito said quietly from where he was still hiding under the desk.

Jongdae was right behind Chanyeol on the stairs, however. He snatched the end of the roll of plastic, drawing it out in a shimmering sheet of intimidation over the heads of the animals as Candy and the mad-as-wet hens came round again. Tao severed the plastic wrap cleanly from the roll with the blade of a letter opener, his arm sawing through the layer with machine like efficiency.

From a strategic position between the Hikaru’s desk and the wall, Yabu had given up on the paper airplanes and had resorted to kneeling down and surveying the whole situation through an empty paper towel tube, waiting to make his next move should any of the enemy come close enough to his position. But then phone rang and he reached out to answer it. “Welcome to JUMPaper. This is your battle commander, codename Scope, speaking. We are unavailable to take orders at this time due to a series of unfortunate circumstances involving sticky notes, waffles, and some angry chickens. Try again tomorrow maybe?” Without waiting for an answer, he hung up the phone and resumed his observations.

As Tao proceeded to trap Keito under where he was hiding out Joonmyun finally made it up the stairs. “Boss!” the ninja spy unit hailed him with a crow of relief in unison.

“Stay strong, boys! We are one! Let’s love~!” Joonmyun grabbed the nearest enemy in a big bear hug, as if attempting to squeeze him into surrender. But then he was pelted with a few rubber bands from the tall guy standing on the desk nearby.

“Don’t squeeze Daiki,” Yuto shouted as he let loose another round of rubber bands. “He’s short!”

“Hey!” Daiki complained, half-out of breath, but no one paid much attention.

Chanyeol knocked the stash of rubber bands out of Yuto’s reach with the saran wrap roll, covering for Tao as he bundled Keito, now completely mummified in the plastic restraint save for his face and feet, towards the stairs. The animals pushed past them just as Tao teetered on the edge of the first step. Tao clung to Keito’s swaddled body as they tumbled down the flights of stairs like a lump of quartz in a rock tumbler.

“Why does this always happen to me,” Keito groaned from under Tao’s weight once they rolled to a stop at the bottom.

“Why does what always--” Tao started to ask, but he was cut off by a water balloon bomb that broke across his forehead. Only it wasn’t water inside--the distinct smell of maple syrup flooded his nostrils as a sticky liquid dripped from his hairline and rolled into his eyebrows, bonding to his fingertips when he tried to swipe it off.

“Careful, Lu Han! Be careful--”

But a frustrated grunt broke off Yixing’s warnings as another balloon bomb broke across Keito’s shoulder and splattered onto the bridge of Tao’s nose. “He’s ruthless,” Kyungsoo commented in admiration from where he was waiting behind the protection of a lamppost in the courtyard, watching at a safe distance beside Kris.

“He’s angry at the world,” Kris sighed. “You wouldn’t supply his soy ink so now he’s on a rampage. You do realize he’s enjoying destroying our supplies of the newly developed adhesive you’ve been guarding in the office closet?”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Kyungsoo shrugged as he folded his pocket handkerchief, his flag of surrender all ready to go in case their outpost might come under fire. “But I think Yixing is glad to see his engineering genius being put to such historic work. This is a monumental occasion, don’t you think? Care to join me for a commemorative selca?”

Upstairs, Sehun rolled his eyes when he caught sight of the head secretary taking indulgent selca with their assistant manager in the courtyard while the men upstairs battled for their lives--er, that is to say, their lifelong dignities. He wished he could whip out his phone and take one too, to show his future grandchildren how noble his profile looked in the heat of hand to hand combat, but unfortunately his hands were occupied. Yamada was trying to kick him in the shins from his current position.

Inoo, who had put on war paint via the collection of multi-colored sharpies he had in his desk, reached for the nearby supply closet. “We need back-up,” he proclaimed.

Inside were the multitude of cleaning supplies no one had touched in months piled up into a dusty mountain. (Hikaru had put up a chore wheel in the break room ages ago but someone had mysteriously scribbled all over it, making it unreadable. They suspected Chinen but could never prove it, so everyone had ignored the cleaning duties.) Inoo grabbed two mops and three brooms and passed them out to his anxious coworkers. They each grabbed a protective dust mask, and with a battle cry moved towards the staircase.

“Time to rescue Keito,” Hikaru said, armed with two squirt-bottles of cleaner that had expired over a year ago and began to congeal in a funky-looking green substance.

“He’s a prisoner of war!” Baek hollered, and chased after Hikaru down the stairs with Jongdae and Chanyeol hot on his heels.

“Don’t run on the stairs, guys!” Joonmyun flapped his arms, but no one payed attention to him except for the chicken who flapped and squawked in an incensed battle dance. And then the chicken launched itself at the tangle of Sehun and Yamada’s limbs.

Sehun screamed in a supreme loss of his ninja control and scrambled over the ledge of the window, pulling Yamada along with him in a death grip on the scruff of his collar. The chicken followed, as if caught in the gravity of their plunge.

Minseok, frozen to his spot in horror, tried not to choke on air as Sehun’s hands and a few feathers disappeared from view and Yamada’s terrified voice echoed against the bricks of the courtyard, “Mama, I don’t wanna die!”

“Another one bites the dust,” Takaki whispered through trembling lips as he caught Minseok’s eye from across the room. He then dashed towards the stairs, probably intending on getting to the courtyard to check on the fallen coworkers.

Meanwhile on the staircase, Hikaru squirted some of the mysterious cleaner at Baekhyun but missed when he leaped dramatically down three steps. The cleaner attached itself to the wall, leaving an acidic stain behind.

“No seriously guys! Don’t run on the--!” Joonmyun’s admonition tore into a shriek of panic as a loud thump like someone’s head puncturing drywall echoed back from the stairwell.

“That sounds mysteriously like something just fell off the balcony,” Yabu said, pushing his dust mask down to his chin. “Hope that wasn’t important.”

That comment propelled Minseok’s feet into motion just as mysteriously and against his will as they had locked into immobility moments earlier. He leaned over the window ledge expecting the worse, but there the two idiots were, sitting on a rubberized awning only one story down. Yamada waved and Sehun grinned sheepishly, and Minseok rolled his eyes. The two stuck on the awning didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger since they weren’t idiotic enough to continue grappling on the edge of their small ledge. The chicken that had fallen with them clucked in what he could swear sounded like a vaguely annoyed tone.

He turned to reassure Takaki before he left the office, but discovered that everyone had already disappeared down the stairwell and out of sight. The sound of someone screaming in pain that sounded distinctly like Takaki’s expression of rage or emotional trauma whenever he lost the Tuesday lottery for the hundredth week in a row echoed back, and now Minseok’s heart was the part of him clenching in terror.

“Romeo? Romeo! Where art thou, my Romeo?” he screamed into the courtyard below, hoping against hope that Takaki could hear him and would be able to decipher his secret code.

“Is someone quoting Shakespeare?” Yuto asked from the bottom of the stairs. But no one was listening to him in the chaos of the aftermath of the sudden maple glue explosion now covering half the people in the stairwell. Inoo was trying to scrub the glue off of Daiki’s arms, and Takaki was in the process of frantically running his fingers through his hair to remove the sticky substance that was ruining his carefully crafted hairstyle. Yuto shrugged and then tentatively licked the maple glue sticking to his battle broom. It actually wasn’t half bad.

“Jongin?” Minseok glanced over his shoulder to search for any of his comrades with arms long enough to help him haul Yamada and Sehun off the awning below, but it seemed that all of his coworkers had truly disappeared, either down the Staircase Of Doom, or through the window.

He was more concerned about Takaki’s safety at the moment, so Minseok abandoned the two on the awning with a tight smile. “Hang tight guys!” He waved to them, now crosslegged and hugging each other on the ledge as if they were in a boy scout tent about to break into a chorus of “Kumbaya”, and beat a hasty retreat towards the stairs.

By now, both groups had taken the fight to the courtyard, and a storm of maple glue balloons, rubber bands, waffles, and expired cleaning spray were raining down all around. Battle cries mixed with cries of pain. It was all out war.

But at that moment, just as despair was starting to creep into Minseok’s heart like the caustic burn of expired Windex, an unexpected messenger arrived.

“Pizza delivery,” a guy with heavy black frames and red plugs in his ears announced in a vaguely bored and disinterested tone. He looked unconcerned as a chicken scurried by, clucking loudly. “Somebody ordered a vegetarian mock-fish pizza with extra barbecue sauce from Jackpot Fusion Kitchen?”

Everyone stopped dead in their tracks to face the newcomer. “Did you guys order pizza?” Tao mumbled, his lips incapacitated with dribbles of adhesive.

“No, not that I know of?” Keito replied, scratching at his head.

“I just need to hand this off,” the guy in the delivery uniform whose nametag said ‘Taeil oppa’ yawned. “It’s like been already paid for.”

“May I propose that we first of all get this mess straightened out, for example call a peace truce, and then we can worry about details like pizza orders.” Joonmyun got his feet, knees shaky, but spoke in a clear leader tone.

Hikaru nodded in agreement, setting his squirt bottles on the ground. The rest of the JUMPaper employees set down their cleaning supplies but still looked at the others with faces ranging from wary to downright angry. Yuto’s broom somehow accidentally smacked Inoo in the face as he tossed it down, and Inoo turned his annoyed glare on his tall coworker instead. His glare looked kind of silly and lost a bit of its effectiveness with all the sharpie marker artwork he’d added to his face earlier.

“I don’t see how this peace truce is gonna work.” Baekhyun frowned at the balloon bomb in his fist, the first one he had gotten his hands on and was dying to test out while it was still legal to aim at moving targets.

“Nonsense!” Minseok shook his head, still half in disbelief he was having this conversation with his coworkers and neighbors as trying to mediate a kindergarten classroom’s food fight. “We’ve gotten along for years already, what’s to stop EXOdhesive and JUMPaper from continuing our peaceful coexistence?”

“Peace? Hah! We’ve been mortal enemies since the day back in September 2012 Baekhyun accepted our delivery of fish pizza even though we ordered it first!” Daiki exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger.

“I thought someone was sending us a present!” Baekhyun squawked in exaggerated outrage at Daiki. “I don’t even like fish, I’ll have you know!”

“May I take this moment to remind you all that Jackpot Fusion Kitchen harms no actual fish in the making of our pizzas. Our pies are topped with 100% vegetarian fish substitutes,” Taeil drawled in annoyance. He glanced down at his watch.

“No surrender,” Yabu insisted. “I bite my thumb at you!” He made a great show of actually biting his thumb before wincing at how much it hurt.

“What are you doing?” Hikaru sighed.

“Is he biting his thumb at us?” Chanyeol asked.

“Guys, let’s stop arguing about pizza and thumbs and focus on the big picture here for a second! Minseok and I _love_ each other. It’s our destiny to be together. I think we all need to rethink our priorities and cease this silly prank war,” Takaki interrupted, waving his arms around now that he’d given up on trying to get the maple glue out of his hair.

“Ridiculous prank war,” Minseok nodded in agreement, slotting his hands on his hips as he stood to attention at the top of the stairs.

“Minseok!” Joonmyun spun on his heel to fix his in house lawyer with a severe look. “Is this true? Are you romantically affiliated with this...this…!”

“This JUMPaper employee? Who I met through mutual business engagements and later started dating because we had so much in common? Yes, in fact! And our six month anniversary is next week.”

“Couple selca or it’s not true!” Chanyeol hollered like a middle school kid, but Minseok rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone to offer proof.

“Wow, Takaki, we had no idea,” Yamada said. He and Sehun had stuck their heads over the side of the awning and had been listening in the whole time.

“How did this whole fight start again, anyway?” Keito asked suddenly, still scratching at his head to the point Tao was starting to worry whether he might be allergic to one of the active ingredients.

“Espionage? Maybe.”

“Wait, does this all have to do with the upcoming conference?” Takaki turned to Hikaru, a sudden light bulb blinking in his vision as the odd activities of his coworkers started to come together in a picture of clarity.

“Well we were supposed to be thinking of ways to promote our new sticky note product, but…” Hikaru trailed off.

“We haven’t promoted anything at all because we got... distracted,” Yabu concluded. He picked up the remains of a maple glue balloon and began folding the rubbery bits like an origami crane.

“Well yeah, we struck back in retaliation because we suspected you all were attempting to sabotage our conference presentation of sticky note adhesives. Except now all of our new and innovative adhesive has been spent as ammunition so I’m not sure what we’ll present…” Joonmyun stared sadly at the mess of stickiness in almost everyone’s hair, and which Keito and Tao were nearly completely slathered in like a couple of pork steaks marinating in barbecue sauce.

“We have a bit left, actually.” Kyungsoo stepped forward, confident that the missiles had stopped hurtling in the pacifying presence of the pizza delivery dude. “I have secret reserves that not even Yixing knows where I hid them.”

“See! I knew it!” Chanyeol crowed in vindicated delight. “I knew you had something up your sleeve.”

“Aren’t you glad of it now,” Kyungsoo answered drily. “Thing is, we still have enough adhesive prepared to present at the conference, but we were too busy with running reconnaissance operations to order enough paper to make our demos of sticky notes…”

“I have an idea!” a voice called out from above and everyone turned to look up. Yamada grinned once he had all of their attention. “ _We_ at JUMPaper happen to have quite a bit of paper… perhaps we can collaborate? If that’s okay, Boss?” He turned to Hikaru.

Hikaru nodded because they probably weren’t going to get their sticky notes done otherwise. He turned to Joonmyun for approval. “We’ll provide the paper, you provide the sticky stuff, and we’ll make the presentation together?”

“Great, but who do I leave this pizza with? I have to go home and write posts for my _Save the Sciaenidae_ blog.”

“We’ll share it,” Joonmyun said, glancing over to Hikaru with a tentative glance. “If that’s okay with you guys?”

“That sounds great,” Hikaru said over Yuto and Daiki’s enthusiastic chants of _pizza! pizza!_.

“I don’t like fish or mock-fish,” Keito protested quietly, but no one cared. Tao patted him gently on the top of his head and then grimaced at all the stickiness.

From above, Sehun and Yamada started to serenade them all with “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore” and, believe it or not, “Kumbaya” as Takaki and Minseok passed out slices of vegetarian pizza and eco-friendly napkins. The office was still a mess, and no one was prepared for the conference they were all supposed to depart for that night, but at that moment love and generosity (and pizza) took precedence over mundane work details.

“Also, can you guys get us down from here?” Yamada asked once they finished up another round of Kumbayah. “I’m afraid of heights.”

 

_Four Hours Later…._

 

“Hey hyung, I found Chicken #3!” Sehun held up the hen with the faded spray paint number still visible on her side, who was clucking in disgruntled unamusement. While cleaning up, they all took turns running home to quickly pack for the conference they were supposed to be leaving for in a few hours, so they could leave as soon as the office was clean (or clean-ish) again.

“Great! Let’s put her in this pen with Chicken #1!” Chanyeol gestured at the improvised pen Yixing had rigged for them out of recycled disposable chopsticks and his secret recipe super glue.

“But where’s #2?” Jongdae asked, his brow wrinkling in suspicion.

“...oh my gosh, do you think Jongin ate it??” Baekhyun replied.

“Where is Jongin anyway?”

“And Chinen too,” Yamada piped up. “We haven’t seen him for ages.”

“Hey, I found the guys in here!” Takaki called from the entrance to JUMPaper’s office inventory room. “They fell asleep!”

“Chinen, were you doing inventory again? During the _entire_ battle?” Hikaru asked sternly, hands on his hips.

Chinen blinked sleepily, looking annoyed at being awoken from his nap. He grabbed the nearest ream of paper and lobbed it at Hikaru. Jongin rolled over and went back to sleep.

“Hey, don’t let your employee teach our intern his bad habits,” Minseok scolded Takaki in mock annoyance, but Takaki just took the opportunity to yank Minseok down behind a pane of frosted glass to steal a kiss from his smiling lips.

“Guys and fellow conference attendees,” Joonmyun announced in an official voice as he strolled into the front of the JUMPaper office, “great progress on the cleaning up stuff front! But we’ve got a plane to catch. Did you manage to hunt down the last of the chickens and the magnaes?”

“There’s only two chickens,” Yuto piped up. “No worries.” Then he turned to Hikaru. “See? I told you that one was a good prank too.”

Hikaru shooed Yuto away from his desk. “We’ve got to go. Come on boys, you can sleep on the plane.” Hikaru tried to rouse Chinen and Jongin again by their shirt collars and they stumbled to their feet with noisy yawns of protest. Yamada dragged Chinen away from the paper before he could throw it at them again.

“Waffles for the road?” Yabu asked, offering some to Lu Han.

“You ready?” Takaki smiled at Minseok and hefted his boyfriend’s suitcase in his left hand before Minseok could try to carry it for him.

Minseok rolled his eyes but didn’t complain. He was too glad that he was now free to catch Takaki’s hand in his and hold it proudly all the way to the airport, even in front of their coworkers.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Julia for her help with the Swedish translations, and to our Exordium team leader Alice, and everyone else on our team and those who sprinted with us!


End file.
